


Make You Ill

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Ready For The Siege [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, Mind Manipulation, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Mindfuck, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Red Room, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:51:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's past is starting to haunt her and Loki refuses to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, the Red Room never did take no for an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evaluating Threats

"There's another Black Widow."

Natasha didn't outwardly react to Sitwell's comment, and she wondered if he was disappointed in that fact. She sat very calmly as he went over an op to infiltrate Hydra and get close to Ophelia Sarkissian while she had been in Asgard. The op had gone south in a bad way, and all of the agents involved were dead. The sum total of intel that they had been able to get from the op consisted of blurred photos, fractured texts, cut off phone calls full of panicked voices and a handful of encrypted files that had been sent to one of the European safe houses. One of the phone calls had consisted of a mangled prayer and the final words "Oh dear God, she's calling herself the Black Widow. But it's not Romanoff, it's some blonde—"

"What do you make of all of this, Agent Romanoff?" Sitwell asked, leaning forward with that earnest yet vapid expression on his face.

"Her name is Yelena Belova," she replied quietly. "She's the only other survivor of the Black Widow program."

He blinked, surprise clear on his features. "So you know her."

"Once." When that terse reply didn't seem to satisfy him, she shrugged. "I turned mercenary after I burned down the Red Room. She'd gone to ground and nothing else happened until recently. I didn't keep track of her."

Natasha hadn't kept track because Yelena clearly hadn't remembered her in the aftermath of the Red Room's destruction. She had snarled and attacked Natasha, and it was only after a fierce knock down, dragged out fight that they had reached a stalemate. _I'll kill you if you come after me. I'm the only Black Widow, the true Black Widow. You are nothing, and I will end you if I ever see you again._

"I find that hard to believe," Sitwell began.

"If there's nothing to track, there's no point. I had enough to do on my own at the time. And then once I was brought in to SHIELD, a different agent was assigned to look into her whereabouts," Natasha replied reasonably, though her stomach roiled. _Yelena. Why are you using that name now? What happened?_

"So you didn't have to."

"I told the agents everything they needed to know during the debriefs."

"Everything they needed to know," Sitwell echoed. "Was that everything there is to know?"

Of course it wasn't, and they both knew it.

"Yes," Natasha lied.

Sitwell stared at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really." He paused, then leaned forward slightly in his chair. His desk was messier than Coulson's was, and the entire office had a lived in look. Natasha had never felt comfortable in this controlled chaos. She vastly preferred the neater serenity of Coulson's offices. "What's the nature of the information you have that they don't?"

"They don't need to know who she slept with on her own time, what little there was of it. I told them about the ops I knew about, the training sessions and the nature of the escape."

If Sitwell heard her irritated edge, he wisely didn't remark on it. "I've gone over the files since her name first popped up several months ago. She's come up out of nowhere."

No, not nowhere. The Red Room. Its participants weren't seen unless they _wanted_ to be seen. So Yelena wanted to be found now. Why?

"In addition," Sitwell continued, "there apparently was a mention of an assassin with her that had impressive marksmanship and a metal arm."

Natasha couldn't breathe for a moment, and she held herself very still. "That's not possible."

"Why do you say that?"

"There are those in the intelligence community that don't believe he exists. Those that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's a ghost. You'll never find him."

"Why?"

"Because he's dead."

"How can you be so sure if there are sightings of him?"

She stared at him with a flat expression. "Because he was in the Red Room when I burned it down. I killed him."

And her entire universe had shattered in that moment. She had lost the Winter Soldier as well as Yelena Belova, and was cast adrift. Of course she had turned into a mercenary. What other skill set did she have? What other options could she have chosen from?

Contemplating her carefully, Sitwell slowly nodded. "You left that out in your debriefs."

"No one asked about the Winter Soldier and he was dead anyway. There didn't seem to be a point at the time, and I've been occupied since then."

His eyes were sharp, still assessing her. "Are you certain he's dead?"

"Absolutely. Whatever game she's playing, that's not the same man."

"Then I suppose we'll need you to find out what kind of game she's playing," Sitwell announced, closing the file folder in front of him. Oh, how Natasha wanted to hit him for that, take that smug expression off of his face. He was a capable agent, but he grated against every last nerve she possessed. She would rather stand before the entire World Council than deal with him on a regular basis, yet here she was.

Natasha nodded sharply. "Immediately, sir."

She left before she could say anything she would regret.

***

"I have a situation," Natasha said without preamble. She was sitting in Steve's suite at his weekly poker game, along with Clint and Steve's friend Sam Wilson from the VA in Brooklyn. Sam had originally worked in Washington, DC, but had transferred out of protest. One administrator was making life difficult for some of the doctors there that refused to toe his lines about patient care, and it was only getting worse over time. As much as Sam had enjoyed his work with the vets there, particularly his support groups, he wasn't going to support that location even tacitly by ignoring the patient care issues. If anything, he documented it all and forwarded it to several congressmen and committees on Capitol Hill before making a run for New York. "Brooklyn's much better," Steve had commented when he heard the story.

Sam had merely snorted. "Of course it is, you're a Brooklyn boy at heart."

"Best borough in the city," Steve had declared with a grin.

Natasha had waited until the second hand before speaking up. "Is it Loki?" Steve asked with a frown. "He did seem pretty bummed about the banishment."

"Bummed is an understatement," Natasha replied with a shrug. He had actually retreated to the Astoria apartment to cry. When Natasha caught him, he had picked a fight with her until she had punched him in the jaw. Loki had gone down like a sack of bricks and hadn't moved for almost an hour before admitting he had no game plan. For someone that had thrived on convoluted plans and threats of inducing chaos, he reacted to loss like a spoiled little boy.

"It has to do with a meeting at SHIELD that I had." Natasha eyed Sam. "Technically, I shouldn't be discussing this with any of you. And especially not you, Sam."

He grinned at her, teeth a bright and happy flash of white against his dark skin. "Hey, this conversation never happened. Just playing Texas Hold 'Em with some buddies."

"Good." She looked over at Clint. "It has to do with Yelena Belova." He gave her an almost anxious look, likely because he knew how hard it was to discuss anything about her past. She had been a victim of the Red Room for so long, nothing more than a tool, and sometimes she still had trouble finding her way around humanity.

For Steve's and Sam's sakes, she glossed over her past: orphaned when very young, she was brought into a training Academy with other girls. They all competed to get into the Elite program and didn't think twice about the acts they had to do. That included killing, maiming, abducting enemies of the state, torture, seduction and undermining the authority of fellow cadets in the Academy. "I passed my exam to get into the Elites when I was nine and a half," Natasha said, folding her cards together and placing them face down on the table. "The Elites was the Red Room. The best of the best, the assassins and spies for Mother Russia."

Sam looked at their solemn faces. "You sure I should be hearing this?"

"It's above their clearance levels," Natasha murmured. "I know we can trust you. And I have a feeling things are going to go very badly very quickly. I'm going to need help on this."

She could almost feel Clint's shock like a tangible thing. She was actually asking for help? It had to be a doozy of a situation.

"Sitwell wants me to catch her, either bring her in or stop her. The problem is that she has the same training as I do. Which means that the recent sightings are because she _wants_ to be seen. She wants me to find her. I can't even think of a reason why."

"Or is it not necessarily what she remembers of you?" Sam offered, not even pretending to focus on his cards anymore. "The news was all about you being Ambassador to Asgard, making a big show of how the two planets were working together." He shot her a playful smile. "Gotta say, those photos of you in Asgardian gear, all the layers and pins and such? You still look mighty fine like that, Natasha."

She laughed, tension broken a bit. "Still, there has to be a reason why _now._ She went to ground for years and only now is surfacing. It's in a pretty big way, too." Natasha looked at Steve in concern. "She's with Hydra. She's Ophelia Sarkissian's girlfriend. That means she has access to a lot of dangerous resources. For all we know, she could be the one that was feeding Meissen data last year. We never did find the supplier he bought Hydra secrets from."

"Let's say that theory is accurate," Steve began reasonably, also giving up on the game. That left only Clint still holding cards. "She gets in good with Hydra, lives a life of luxury amidst racist assholes and scientists. Then there you are as Ambassador. They also mentioned you working for SHIELD, so that secret was out, too." He shrugged at her sigh. "She could truly be a Hydra agent. In which case, she could try to use the past relationship to get into SHIELD servers and steal secrets for Hydra."

"I'm the last person who would sell secrets that way."

"But if she's that type and thinks you're the same as she is..." Steve said reasonably.

Clint finally put his cards down. "Hydra would have gone through her head with a fine toothed comb," he said softly. "Her brain isn't safe, so we can't even begin to guess what she thinks. For all we know, seeing your face on TV might have been a trigger for her. That could be why it's _now,_ and not ten years ago."

Natasha looked at him grimly, agreeing with his assessment. "So the big question is, what's her endgame? Using the Black Widow moniker is only going to draw me out. So why does she want to see me again so badly?"

"What was it like the last time you saw her?" Sam asked.

Natasha actually grimaced. "Not good. We fought, and she actually wanted to kill me."

"So we have to assume she's a threat," Steve said softly.

"I hate to say this, but..." Clint squirmed a bit in his seat. "Have Loki drop her in a pocket dimension and forget where it is. You'd be safer that way."

"At what cost?"

He looked away from her, lips compressed unhappily and shame etched into the strain around his eyes. He knew she didn't like behaving in monstrous ways anymore. She had done far too much of that since childhood.

"If she's gone around looking for information on you," Steve began, "you need to find whatever information you can about her."

"Even if we find anything, it can't be trusted. I'm fairly sure it would have been planted by her for whatever purpose. She's already put out rumors of working with someone I _know_ is dead, as a matter of fact."

"Seems to me, you're looking it maybe a little _too_ sideways. The spy thing, I figure," Sam said after a moment, drumming his fingers on the table. "Rather than going around her, just go _to_ her. She probably isn't going to expect that."

"That would mean going to Austria," Natasha remarked.

"I've got vacation time coming up," Sam said idly, though he fooled no one. "And I've never been to Austria before."

Natasha smirked. "I can probably find a way to get SHIELD to comp the tickets."

"You are a wonderful human being," Sam told her with a huge grin on his face.

"Not really, but thank you for saying so."

"Now, you see here," Sam replied. She knew what was coming, as they went through iterations of this conversation every few weeks. "If Captain America thinks you're a worthwhile person, you are. Nobody's 100% angel, even him." He shrugged at this point, which was new. "I get it now, why you say stuff like that. But that was from when you were a kid and they fucked with your head. The way I see it, you can't take full responsibility for that. Some, _maybe,_ but you were a kid. We don't hold kids responsible for most stupid stuff they do. Now, when you're a grown ass adult, that's a whole different story."

Natasha snorted and took a pull from her beer. "Good to know."

Sam shot her another brilliant grin. "Gotta keep me around for _some_ reason. Though it absolutely would not hurt my feelings if it was only for my good looks."

Steve threw some chips at Sam's head and Clint just snorted. "Are we going to finish playing poker or what?" Clint asked.

"Yeah, let's play," Steve urged, taking up all the cards to reshuffle and deal. "You're going to need some time to plan out a mode of attack," he told Natasha. "But we're with you on this, however you need us to help. You wouldn't discuss it otherwise."

"It's mostly because I don't trust Yelena." Something like guilt and fear curled in her stomach, a deep and painful ache. "Once upon a time I used to, but I don't know what she's capable of anymore," Natasha admitted.

"And by the same token," Clint reminded her, "she doesn't know what _you_ can do."

Steve looked at Natasha thoughtfully. "Or is it that you need us because you don't know if you can turn on her if you have to?" His expression softened at her sigh and downcast eyes. "Hey, it's understandable. You were friends."

"In the Red Room, it would have been weakness," Natasha replied softly. "And if they decided I was still useful, I would be punished instead of killed."

That put a damper on conversation. "That is seriously fucked up," Sam said finally.

"That's why I don't talk about it."

Clint reached over and grasped her hand tightly. "Whatever happens with Yelena, we'll back you up. We're family, after all," he reminded her.

That got her smiling at him, and poker night resumed.

***

Loki sat in the suite he had been assigned when he first came to Avengers Tower as a female version of himself. His hideaways on Yggdrasil were always an option, but he was feeling bereft and needed to be close to _someone,_ even if they were not particularly fond of him. He didn't often feel charitable toward them either, truth be told.

A thousand years was a very long time. He should probably get used to feeling lonely. All of these mortals would be dead long before the end of his banishment. He would be alone soon enough, spending the rest of his banishment talking to bones.

He was also angry with Natasha, as well as despondent at how little he seemed to matter to her. Was his love so worthless, then? Did he mean nothing? Oh, she _said_ she cared for him, that what happened to him mattered to her. But did it actually _matter_ in a way that could be love, or was it simply a matter of convenience?

No, it couldn't be that. Their liaison had been nothing but inconvenient for the spy.

The suite seemed too constricting, too full of memories of his pain and bitterness. He stalked from it, pacing the halls without knowing how else to get rid of this nervous energy. Natasha was still in the Tower, in Steve's suite at their fairly regular poker game. He hadn't thought much about not being invited, but now it burned. She didn't think much of him, didn't seem to like him at all. Unless they were enacting their deal, then she seemed to care for him.

By the Tree, he was nothing but an obligation. Whatever she felt, there was no context for it outside their deal, was there? But then why save him from Amora? Why offer to bring him to Asgard as Lara? Why, why, why?

Loki was snarling and ready to pounce on something to break it by the time the poker game dispersed. Natasha didn't seem particularly relaxed afterward. In fact, everyone seemed a little tense, even the apparently unflappable Sam. The man hadn't even blinked at seeing Loki in the Tower and being told that he had met her female form earlier. "Yeah. Superhero thing, whatever that might be," Sam had said at the time with a negligent wave, not pressing for any details or the name Loki had used as a woman. He honestly _didn't_ care about the whys and hows of the transition. "You're still coming to help out in the support group, right?" he had asked. Nonplused, Loki had agreed.

Of course, he now regretted it.

"Natasha. I require your time," Loki had said, reaching out for her.

Her drawn expression really should have been a warning signal, but he ignored it. He had been ignored for too long, and her easy way of entering into physical relations with others bothered him more than he ever wanted to admit aloud. She mattered to him, damn her eyes and lying tongue, and he was nothing to her. All his attempts to get her to name their relationship had resulted in _nothing._

"I have things to plan," she said with a sigh. She did look tired, and Loki felt a twinge of sympathy for the strain that she must have been under.

"If it's that woman that plagues you, I can simply eliminate her. Say the word, and she will not trouble you again."

If anything, those words made her blanch. "No. I will not allow that."

 _Monster,_ a voice whispered in his mind. "It would take hardly a moment…"

 _"No!"_ she snapped angrily.

"Why not? The woman will be gone, you have no need to worry after your safety or the safety of others. She plagues you. You can't want her near you, even if you once called her friend and claimed she offered comforts." Loki was utterly incredulous, and didn't care if their argument was drawing a crowd.

"Not now, Loki. I have things to do."

"Or people?" he asked snidely as he caught hold of her arm.

She had grown very still, and Loki willfully ignored the others in the common room, just down the hall. He crowded into her space, rage simmering beneath his skin. He had _tried,_ he really did, he would be true to her, would burn the cosmos if it made her happy. The damned rings and Essine Ruby had been retrieved at great personal cost to keep her safe. Didn't that count for anything? He was _trying,_ he didn't understand what she wanted, but still he was trying to please her. Why didn't that matter to her?

"You need to let me go, Loki. _Now,"_ she all but snarled, using her domme voice.

He wanted to obey her. He wanted to ignore her. He wanted to strike her. He wanted to fuck her right there against the wall, her friends be damned.

"Or what?" he insisted, still holding her arm tightly.

"You aren't to interfere with my work," she hissed.

"Your work," he snarled. "And did that include that woman? Did that include Fandral? How many tumbled into your bed for the sake of your _work?"_

Because he had been a job, too. She had bedded him, tried to entice him to join SHIELD. He had done stupid things on her behalf, which had been for SHIELD's benefit.

"I don't have time for this bullshit," she snapped, yanking her arm away from him.

 _No_. She couldn't leave him, not like everyone else.

"You will not turn your back on me, Natasha," Loki snarled.

 _"Watch me."_ She yanked her arm away from him and stalked toward the common room, her entire body language thrumming with anger.

Well, he had never been very good about following people's signals to stay away.

Loki followed her into the common room. "You didn't answer me, Natasha. How many enter your bed as part of your _work?"_ he asked, the dubiousness of her work clear in his derisive tone. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred? How many fell between your thighs before you earned the title of Black Widow?"

At this, she turned and gave him a resounding slap across the face, her terrifying expression just enough to give him pause. "Do not _ever_ speak to me this way again." Before he could react, she punched him right in the solar plexus, then grabbed his head as he gasped for air. She slammed his face into her knee, and everyone could hear the crunch of cartilage in his nose breaking. "If you do, I will _gut you_ and hang you with your own entrails, then light the remains on fire. Do I make myself clear?"

"You may try," he challenged. "I am a god, and you cannot best me."

Without telegraphing what she intended to do ahead of time, Natasha hooked one foot behind his leg and swept it out in a circle. Loki fell onto his back, the breath whooshing out of him in his surprise, and then the heel of her boot came crashing down on his chest. Then she fell onto one knee, which was also aimed at his chest. Something broke, pain shooting through him, and it was all he could do to stop from crying out.

"Do not test me, Loki. You have far more to lose right now than I do."

Oh, her voice was cold and her expression forbidding and heartless. She stalked out of the common room without a backward glance. No one said a word, and finally Tony went over to the wet bar to pour a drink. "Hey, Horns. You look like shit. I think you need a drink."

Loki traced a _limrunar_ over his chest, forcing the broken rib to push back into place. It was a sharp, painful maneuver, actually worse than getting the injury in the first place. "I did not ask what you thought," he replied coldly.

"Suit yourself," he replied with a shrug, taking the scotch for himself. "You know," he began thoughtfully after taking a sip, "you're like an old married couple. Or at least like my parents, before my mother discovered booze and my father disappeared into a lab."

Surprised by Tony's nonchalant attitude about that little glimpse into the Stark household when he was young, Loki could only stare at him. Why was he talking of such things now?

It was clear Loki didn't get his point, so Tony snorted and shook his head. "Horns, you're utterly clueless, aren't you?"

"Explain yourself," Loki snarled, losing patience with him.

Tony smirked. "Well, when a Mommy and a Daddy care about each other very much—"

"You blundering fool," Loki snapped.

"—they get married. But then when it falls apart, they go into screaming tirades. Or they ignore the hell out of each other."

Loki stilled, staring at Tony. Did he just insinuate something about his relationship – or lack thereof – with Natasha?

When that didn't give him the response he was expecting, Tony sighed. "How about I get you the name of a good therapist? Get some couples counseling?"

"What is this travesty of which you speak?" Loki demanded.

"There are a few really top notch therapists in Manhattan. I can get you some names, hook you up. Because really, one of these days, you're going to go all out and fight. I'd rather not have to hire someone to wash blood out of my home. Or wake up one morning and find half of Manhattan gone because you had an epic shit fit because of your dick moves."

Loki glowered at Tony. "You _dare—"_

"And I know dick moves. I've made plenty of them myself," he continued blithely, taking another sip of his scotch. "The thing of it is, I learn from my mistakes. Or try to." He paused. "I really am not sure if you do, Horns. Because you'd think you would know what Natasha looks like when pissed off by now."

He did. But now that he thought about it, he also knew what else Natasha was feeling, covering up for it with her anger.

Fear.

***  
***


	2. Smoke and Mirrors

While Ophelia Sarkissian had a lavish home in Vienna, that was not where she chose to have Hydra's more sensitive R&D labs built. That was in Villach, the second largest city in the state of Carinthia. That state was more known for skiing in the mountains and lakeside tourist attractions than for being a top notch research location. That was probably the point, however. Villach was close to the border with Italy and was a relatively short distance to other major cities. The city itself was picturesque and a frequent vacation spot within the EU. That likely allowed Hydra to mask the entry and exit of its agents without alarming the local citizens.

With several castles, falconry as an active sport in Landskron Castle, a famous bell tower and the Museum of Doll Art, Sam Wilson had an easy traveling excuse to give colleagues at the VA. He hadn't gone on vacation in the years since entering the VA system, so a three week excursion was believable. SHIELD had refused to comp his plane tickets or hotel room, so Tony Stark actually let them use one of his private jets. And if Steve received a double room instead of a single, SHIELD accountants weren't going to hold that against him. So Sam was able to stay in Villach and be another pair of eyes in the city looking for Ophelia Sarkissian, Yelena Belova, or other known Hydra operatives.

Natasha had snubbed Loki and refused to allow him to come with them. She dyed her hair blonde and dressed with a little more skin showing than usual. Sam flashed her a thumbs up when he saw her, making her roll her eyes. She did smile when he wasn't looking, though. It was good to have the moral support as well as uncomplicated appreciation.

She had a subcutaneous tracker in her deltoid muscle; anything worked into clothing or jewelry was easily lost or damaged, especially if torture ever became involved. She went to various places in Villach, making sure to stay visible. The others were more unobtrusive as they kept an eye on her physically or via GPS. If she wasn't deliberately trying to draw out Yelena, it might have been a pleasant visit. There was no sign of Ophelia or Yelena at Ophelia's home in one of the nicer districts in the city.

After the first week, there was still no sign of Ophelia or Yelena. "I'm sorry," Natasha told Sam when they "accidentally" met in a book store. "It's wasting your vacation time, and there's nothing to show for it."

Sam snorted. "You've got a weird concept of wasting time. I'm in a European city, polishing off my German, I don't have to worry about my patients back home, and I'm talking to a pretty lady in a book store. Who hopefully will go to lunch with me," he added with a cheeky grin and wag of his eyebrows. Natasha laughed and nodded. "Don't worry about me, gorgeous. You do what you gotta do. But maybe it's because you're blonde? I mean, it works for you. I got the feeling that every color works for you. But if she knew you as a redhead, that might be what draws her in, not the blonde."

"Can't make it _too_ obvious."

He shrugged in response. "Maybe. But red stands out. Not too many redheads around, you know? It might be easier to catch her eye that way."

Natasha thought about it for a time. "Makes sense."

"'Course it does," he told her with a grin. "I came up with the idea, didn't I?" He extended his arm in a gallant manner. She rolled her eyes at him but did take his arm. "Now, about that lunch I'd like to go to. Any recommendations?"

After the lunch, Natasha got supplies to dye her hair red again. It was long and wavy, hanging down to her shoulder blades. No sense in getting it cut, too. Her hair had been that long in the Red Room, and Yelena had loved it. She left it loose down her back, feeling the wind ruffle her curls. It was almost like a caress, making her sigh. Memories were such slippery things for them sometimes. Would Yelena even remember her by now? Or did she only remember the title of Black Widow?

Clint tended to playfully flirt with her in the hotel dining areas, playing the role of an expat making a tour of Europe. He enjoyed the role, as it inevitably led the younger agents and lower level analysts to thinking he was in a relationship with Natasha. "I find that hilarious," he had always insisted to Natasha. He never disagreed when Natasha accused him of having an awful sense of humor. "Of course," he had said cheerfully. "I'm the trolliest troll you know. It's one of my more endearing qualities, of course."

Another week of nothing, and Natasha started feeling a little restless. She'd all but painted a target on her back, and that sort of thing never sat well with her. It was different on Asgard, because for all of its strangeness, the people were predictable. Making herself at home drew out the inevitable misogynistic comments, but there was a certain schadenfreude with knocking those people down a peg or two. This was using herself as bait in a lion's cage with no way to really get herself out of the cage; no matter what Sitwell and various other SHIELD go betweens thought, there was no guarantee that Yelena could be turned.

Not after the way they had parted the last time.

Steve and Sam decided to go to Vienna even though SHIELD agents hadn't found any sign that they were there. SHIELD accountants were grumbling about the cost of having Captain America in Austria for such an extended stay, and were planning for him to go home soon. That meant Sam would have to return as well. As much as they were trying to help Natasha track down Yelena, it really had turned into an extended vacation for them. There didn't seem to be sign of Yelena or Ophelia in other cities, making Natasha wonder why Yelena had popped up on the radar at all. "Hey, don't worry about me," Sam told Natasha. "I had an awesome time and got to pretend to be a spy for a little while, anyway. I think that's an awesome vacation. Now I get to go back to Brooklyn with the Boy Scout and go back to helping vets combat PTSD." He shrugged and grinned at her before leaving for Vienna. "Don't worry, you'll find her."

Two days later, while Clint was strolling in a different area of the city, a brunette slid into step beside Natasha in the park. Her step was too familiar, but Natasha thankfully did not falter or look unprepared. "Did you really think I would talk to you with so many shadows?"

Natasha didn't outwardly react to the vicious tone of voice. "Will you talk with me?"

"Lose your shadow." Neither spy actually looked at each other. "Meet me at Landskron Castle tonight. If you're followed, I won't show."

"I'll keep it in mind," Natasha replied, voice even.

The brunette faded into the crowds. Natasha didn't try to track where she was going. Honestly, she was too busy trying not to feel ill.

***

Natasha had gone to Landskron Castle with Sam the week before to attend the Birds of Prey showing. Both had been impressed by the falconry demonstration, the view of Villach and the restaurant housed inside the ruined castle. It had been picturesque, and a fun touristy activity while waiting to see if Yelena would approach.

It was far more sinister at night. Though that could also have been because of Yelena herself.

She was a blonde with blue eyes and delicate facial features, five foot seven in height and had an athletic build. Her eyes were cold as she took in Natasha. "I didn't think you would take me up on the invitation," she said as Natasha approached.

"I came looking for you."

Yelena's eyes narrowed. "With an entourage."

"They're vacationing friends," Natasha told her. That was a gamble, but they weren't Yelena's targets in this.

 _"Friends,"_ Yelena sneered. "Oh, yes. Because we know how you treat you friends."

Natasha took in the stiff posture and bitter words. "What do you remember?"

"I remember you leaving me to die. _Traitor."_

Thinking of her prior conversations in New York, Natasha was careful not to react to that. She didn't know what triggers were left in Yelena's mind.

"I got you out, Yelena," Natasha said, looking at her intently.

Standing five feet away from Natasha, Yelena shook her head. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. "Lies from an accomplished liar. I know what happened, how you turned on our family, destroyed everything that mattered."

"You remember me saving you from the fires, don't you?" Natasha asked, careful not to have any inflection in her voice. "Didn't you ever stop to wonder why I would do that? Why I would let the entire place burn because of what they've done?"

Yelena's jaw tightened in anger. "You never came back—"

"I got you out of there. You were drugged, starved, half out of your mind... You took a knife to my throat and told me never to come back." Natasha's eyes flashed, repressed anger and pain rising to the surface in spite of her resolve to keep her temper. She was so tired of the bullshit she kept having to go through. She was so tired of having to be the strong one that held everyone and everything together. She was tired of stripping herself to the bone and getting nothing back. For once, _just once,_ she wanted something to work out the way it was supposed to.

While Yelena remained in place, staring at her, it was visibly obvious she wanted to take a step back. "That's not what happened."

"I came back anyway," Natasha continued doggedly, stepping closer. "And you fought me. You tried to kill me. You wanted to be the only Black Widow. Just like back in the Red Room, when they pitted us against each other at the end." There was a snarl in her voice, and Yelena flinched. "Oh, you remember _that,_ don't you? Everything else they took from you, but you remember _that._ You don't remember anything that came before."

Darting forward, Yelena grabbed Natasha around the throat. "Pieces, Natalia. I remember you standing over me with your knives, ready to cut me open."

"It's a lie," Natasha said, teeth bared. "That never happened."

"Whose memory is more fractured, Natalia?" Yelena snarled. "Yours, or mine? Nothing is true. Nothing is real."

Natasha yanked her forward by the front of her shirt until their mouths met in a harsh tangle of lips and tongue and teeth. "You remember _that,_ don't you?" she asked, a snarl in her voice. "Corners without the cameras, after you came back with bruises you didn't know how you got, when Starkovsky was too rough with you..."

"That wasn't you—"

She grabbed Yelena by the hair and yanked hard, making her hiss. She didn't let go of Natasha's throat, but her grip loosened. "It was comfort. There were no words for it, were there? Because there couldn't be. Starkovsky lusted after you, and you hated it. You hated how he looked at you, how he _forced_ you, how he wanted to watch you and Winter." Yelena shuddered, her hand now merely resting against Natasha's throat. She was no longer squeezing, no longer trying to kill her. Yelena's expression was frozen as she searched her memories, and the surge of adrenaline seemed to bleed out of Natasha's system too quickly. "There's truth under their lies, Yelena. They couldn't completely erase it all."

"You abandoned Winter," she choked out. "You left him, you left me, you _disappeared."_

Letting go of Yelena's hair, Natasha shook her head. "I couldn't go back, not when the fire reached the labs. But I went through the ashes. Don't you remember the smoke? The coughing, begging me to just leave? I found nothing. _Nothing._ I thought he was dead. I thought we were the only ones left."

"He wasn't dead. You should have known that, Natalia."

_"I thought he was dead."_

"I'm the one that found him," Yelena said, lips pulled back in a triumphant snarl. "I had faith, and I found him. I unlocked him, Natalia, not you." She laughed, an almost hysterical edge to it. "I'm the better Widow. Not the Pale Little Spider, not if I found him and you couldn't."

"No," she shook her head, disbelieving. Yelena had her mind wiped once too many times. The chemical cocktails had damaged her irreparably. There was too much rage in her, too much need for revenge against Natasha. "He was supposed to have been there that night. I couldn't find him in the ashes, he was dead."

"I'm not dead," came a rough voice not too far away from them. Natasha turned her head, eyes widening. Walking toward them was a tall, heavily muscled man. His left arm was entirely metallic, the best bionics that the Red Room could provide. His dark hair was still long and wavy, casting shadows over his dark eyes. He dressed in denim and leather, moving with the dangerous grace that she remembered. He laughed at her expression, and it didn't sound entirely kind. "As good as for a long time, but not dead."

"Winter?" Natasha whispered, looking at him in shock. "But..."

"Natashenka," he said. Soon he was only two steps away from her. "Lena said you were alive."

"I thought you were dead. That all the rumors were just that."

His smile was a dangerous baring of teeth. "You were hard to find, Natashenka. At least until recently. It was frustrating that we couldn't find you, but it meant you learned the lessons well. Now you are too well known. Naughty girl."

"No, it can't be," she began in disbelief, eyes widening. "You were dead," she whispered, shaking her head as the reality of his presence crashed into her. "You were dead. I couldn't find anything left of you. I never would have left if I had known..." She reached out in his direction as she spoke, her tone soft and intimate. "After all this time..."

"You should have known better," Yelena purred, a mixture of love and jealousy in her voice. It sounded like the edge of madness. "Some lessons don't ever leave."

"No, they don't." The look in his eyes was hard, and the only warning she would likely get. It made Natasha's blood run cold; she remembered all too well what he was capable of, and didn't know what he might remember of her. His memories were likely even more patchwork than hers, if that was even possible. "You will return to us, of course."

"Or?"

"Your new friends will die," the Winter Soldier said simply. "They stand in our way, and I will not allow it." His cold gaze settled heavily over Natasha's skin. "They are nothing, Natashenka. Your talents have been wasted these past few years, and we will solve that problem."

"How so?"

"The world is corrupt and greedy, begging for those with our talents." The Winter Soldier smiled, but it was hardly warm or friendly. "Join us."

Join them or her friends would die. She had been offered that choice of defection or death before, but this time, it really wasn't a choice.

Natasha made a soft cry of pain as Yelena injected a syringe into her neck. She looked at her with a betrayed expression, and the Winter Solder caught her as she fell.

Yelena was looking at her, a mixture of hunger and jealousy in her expression. "It will be like before, Natalia. You'll see. Just like before."

She couldn't reply. The darkness swallowed her whole.

***

Darkness and pain, a _snap,_ and then _nothing,_ almost like the gaping emptiness that occurred _between._

Loki shot up in bed, disoriented. It was like the remnant of a nightmare, but it hadn't been very clear. More emotions than actions, especially along that bonding sense he had with Natasha. Norns, but somehow he had—

_The bond._

He flew from his rooms, clothing in disarray, shouting for Jarvis to start triangulating on Natasha's signal in Austria. "Something is wrong, she is unable to move," he cried out, crashing into a wall when he couldn't take a turn fast enough. Where was everyone? Why were her so-called friends not coming to plan out her rescue?

Then he caught sight of a clock on the wall. Four in the morning. Oh, that would explain it.

Still, shouldn't someone have been awake? Shouldn't someone have heard him screaming and then known how serious this was?

SHIELD had been so incredibly shortsighted in bringing Steve Rogers home early. His friend Sam Wilson was staying in the Tower for the few days left of his vacation, as Tony had offered the use of his personal plane or helicopter for day trips. Why did SHIELD handlers think that bringing in Yelena Belova would be simple? Bringing in Natasha hadn't been simple; Clint had tracked her for months, nearly a year, before she finally caved. And it hadn't been Clint's doing that had her transferring her loyalties, but her own idea—

 _Clint Barton._ He was still in Austria with her.

Loki shouted for Jarvis to contact Clint. His heart beat in staccato rhythm, each breath a fractured pant of fear. She had been afraid when she left, and he had been angry. By the Tree, he was a fool, and had wasted his chance to spend time with her. Before her trip to Asgard, Loki had spent time in her bed and they had talked. This time, they had fought and he had been injured because his pride wouldn't allow her to walk away from him or leave whatever their relationship was unnamed. She had repeatedly told him she didn't believe in love, she didn't believe in naming things. It wasn't love from her, but he did have her regard in some way.

And he had thrown it all away for nothing.

Clint answered right away; it was just past ten o'clock in Austria. "Hello," he answered, sounding far too free spirited for Loki's liking.

"Natasha's disappeared."

"What? That's impossible."

"When did you last see her?" Loki snapped, clearly about to lose his temper even more.

"Dinner last night. We're meeting this afternoon."

_"Find her now."_

"Look, just because you're a lonely son of a—"

 _"I can't feel her anymore!"_ Loki shouted, not caring who he woke in the Tower. "I don't know what it is. Something is horribly wrong, Barton. No matter where she is on this realm, I should feel her presence. I felt it when she was in Asgard. But now I feel _nothing._ Our bond is gone, and I didn't erase it. She can't erase it."

He refused to believe she was dead. Refused to.

Clint sucked in a breath. "What else can stop that bond?"

Loki made a choking noise. "It's bound into her very body. As long as she lives."

_"Fuck."_

He wanted to throw something, wanted to break something. Natasha couldn't be dead, couldn't be. Not in the span of only a few hours. But that was ridiculous, wasn't it? Because death could come at any time, and it could be quick or slow, savage or painless. Death could be whatever it wanted to be, though Loki hadn't thought Hel would want to call Natasha to Helheim so soon. It didn't make sense, it _hurt_ and Clint was saying something but Loki was screaming, his magic was flowing out of him in concentric spheres, sharp blasts of energy that sent furniture splintering and the walls cracking.

"Loki, listen to me!" Clint said. Loki barely managed to stop, and didn't even acknowledge the concerned faces of the Avengers. "Let me find out what happened to Tash. She'd have left me some kind of signal if Yelena showed up."

"You have to find her. She can't be—" No, he wasn't even going to say the words, wasn't going to think of the possibility that her eyes were glassy with death, her blood congealed in her veins, pooling as she lay still. No, no, he didn't want that. Even when he thought he had wanted her beaten and hurt, he hadn't wanted her dead. That was too final, and wouldn't have allowed him to gloat and feel superior.

Spinning around, he sent his fist flying into the wall. It hurt pulling his fist back out of the sheetrock, but it was a welcome pain. Again and again he hit the wall, because maybe if he offered up enough blood and skin and bone to Hel, she wouldn't take Natasha. If he broke himself apart, she would be safe.

She had to be safe. Whatever happened to him, she had to be safe.

Steve caught his fist before he could strike the wall again. He had found a stud, and oh, but that pain was so sweet. Hel would like that offering, wouldn't she? She would let Natasha come back to life, surely.

"You gotta calm down, Loki," Steve said. His grip was strong and sure, but the touch didn't send Loki into paroxysms of fear. Steve was Natasha's friend and had always dealt with Loki justly. He had tried to teach him how to build a foundation for his ledger, to contribute to Midgard society in positive ways.

But what did any of that matter if Natasha was dead?

"How do you propose I calm myself, _Captain?"_ Loki sneered. "Surround myself with your filthy, desperate poor? Pretend to be _good?_ Play at being _human?"_

"No, a soup kitchen in Hell's Kitchen won't be enough to calm you down," Steve said seriously. "I think you'd be more harm than good there, to be honest."

Loki growled at him and wrenched his fist away. "You are _useless_ to me!"

Sam had rubbed his eyes when he first came on the scene, and now shook his head at the damage done. "Nat never did take on the soft touches, did she?"

Whirling around at the sound of Sam's voice, Loki let out an incoherent snarl of rage. He didn't advance on him as he might have years ago, which had to be seen as an improvement.

But only Natasha cared about such things, and she was gone.

"So what's this all about?" Sam asked, confused by the destruction.

"Allow me to interrupt," Jarvis said. Loki finally realized that Clint was no longer on the phone. Good. He was there, he could look for clues. "Apparently the magical bond between Loki and Agent Romanoff has been severed. The implication is that she may be deceased."

Both Sam and Steve gaped in shock, and Loki turned to swing his fist into the wall again. He couldn't believe that. He _couldn't._

How do you stop a living weapon, after all? You had to destroy it.

"Wait, wait," Sam said, holding his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "I don't get it. Why does she have to be dead? Aren't there other ways to break this thing?"

"She has no _seidr,_ and I would never sever this bond," Loki hissed, pulling his fist from the wall. His teeth were grit, and he ignored the blood welling up from the myriad scratches on his hand, wrist and forearm.

"Could someone else?"

Loki stopped and looked at Sam uncomprehendingly. "What?"

"Hey, you're the magic dude. But those guys tend to talk out of school, you know what I'm saying? And I'm not as dumb as they hope I am." He shot Steve a look that was partly playful and partly incredulous when Steve protested. "C'mon. I can put two and two together and still keep my mouth shut, you know that." He turned to Loki. "The point is, there are other magic dudes out there. Could one of them have broken the bond?"

"Ekaterina Sarkissian had been collecting mages in Andorra," Loki breathed, eyes wide. "I knew I should have killed that troublesome creature!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sam cried, stepping forward. "Look. Death is pretty damn final..."

Loki looked at Sam with a measure of respect. "You're absolutely right. Death is too good and quick for the likes of her. But reprisals can last a very long time..."

"No to the torture thing!" Sam cried as Tony and Bruce stumbled into the disaster area.

"But if she has interfered—"

"Goddammit, is everyone in this place out of their minds?" Sam cried. "What's wrong with you, man?" he asked Loki.

Steve sighed. "Yeah. So. That clearance thing...?" he began uncertainly as Loki bristled.

"Spit it out, Steve," Sam ordered.

"Sam, meet Loki. Loki, meet Sam." After a beat, Steve sighed again. "Remember? You met Loki before as a her. Lisa."

Sam blinked, his mouth gaping open for a moment. "Oh. That family thing she had to take care of, then... Magic, right?"

"Right," Steve said.

"We have radiation and science to back that up, by the way," Tony offered from the doorway.

"You know what?" Sam asked, shaking his head. "I don't wanna know. Didn't want to then, don't want to now. I don't need to know how that works. Magic is magic, it's got its own rules. I read enough to know that much."

"Possibly the wisest response you can have," Loki snapped. He was still upset by Sam asking what was wrong with him. Could he be so transparently _argr_ that even a mortal that barely knew him could see it?

"Okay. You being from Asgard, you are probably pretty easygoing with death," Sam began, looking at Loki with a stern expression. For a startling moment, Loki was reminded of Odin giving him a lecture as a boy. "But me, I don't truck with that. I was paramilitary rescue over in Afghanistan, and you know I work at the VA now. In other words, _healing._ You don't kill anybody, and we're good."

"Some need killing," Loki snapped.

"Maybe, but not when you're pissed off so bad you can't see straight," Sam snapped back.

Everyone went very still; there were very few people able to speak to Loki in that tone of voice without fear of reprisal. Loki thought of harming him, of teaching him not speak that way to an Asgardian, that he had to respect his betters.

But Loki was no longer Asgardian, was he? And was he really better than these mortals, who had gone out of their way to help the helpless and even put in a good word regarding his deeds on Midgard? Was he really worthy of Natasha if he harmed one of her friends out of spite?

So he merely growled, narrowing his eyes at Sam. "I will raze that city to the ground if Clint finds her body."

"Dude, you find out who did it, I'll help you."

Loki stared at Sam, who didn't flinch and met his stare. After a moment, he nodded. "Very well."

"Good." Sam made a big show about looking around the damaged kitchen and common room, then at the wall clock. "So. Is that magic something that can fix up this mess? 'Cause now that I'm awake at four twenty-three am, I want breakfast."

Scowling, Loki nodded.

The other men visibly relaxed, and then they all set about to either cleaning up the mess or cooking breakfast.

***

Jesenice was known in Slovenia for mining and iron making, as well as ice hockey. Yelena cared nothing for these facts. It was over Austria's border, and the steel industry meant that there would be a "bad" neighborhood close to the industrial sector of the city. She didn't know or care about any tourist attractions; the time to pretend interest in such things was gone.

She got a room in a run-down looking hotel in a visibly poorer area of Jesenice. It didn't matter what the room looked like as long as it was cheap and had a big bed. The clerk tried to leer at her, possibly because she had affected an accent to her German and made sure to look more exhausted than she actually felt. Yelena was exhilarated; everything was falling into place. The disgusting gaze of the clerk didn't even bother her at that moment, so he could live.

Key in hand, Yelena opened the door to the hotel room. It was serviceable enough, and the Winter Soldier installed the small minifridge according to her request, as well as hooks in the ceiling and wall that would be able to hold restraints. The stupid clerk would have to deal with extra eyelet hooks and any damage they did to the room. She planned to be far, far away long before he discovered the state of the room. The name on the papers she had given him was fake, of course. There would be no one to find.

The last thing to be installed in the room was Natasha. She was tied down to the bed, and Yelena gave her a set of injections from the minifridge. Natasha didn't even react; the sedatives given repeatedly during the drive ensured that. They'd found her GPS tracker, of course; the first thing they had done was to scan for listening devices and trackers in Villach. The tracker had been dug out of her arm and tossed aside haphazardly, which should throw off her handlers for a time. It didn't really matter if they tried to find her, since Yelena had picked a random direction and taken off with everything she needed in the car.

Yelena remembered trying to kill Natasha. She remembered that Natasha had ample opportunity to kill her, but hadn't. Pushing farther back, into her tenure with the Red Room, was painful. It was like spikes being driven into her skull. That was a classical conditioning technique, one she knew well. What didn't they want her to remember? What was so damaging that it had to stay hidden? What was she missing?

For a moment, Yelena's expression clouded with uncertainty. Then her features smoothed out. It was all going to work. It was all going to fall into place. The mission would bind them all together again.

She had her own injections, her own schedule of vitamins and pills. There were protocols in place, a series of things she could do without reminders.

 _There were personality overlays once,_ she thought, standing over Natasha's prone form on the bed. _The better to blend in, the better to be the thing needed to complete the mission. It was always about the mission._

But somewhere in the back of her mind, Yelena remembered that there was more to the mission, more than simply using comrades to get the job done.

Natasha had kissed her, and memories slipped and slid inside of her mind. It was different from Ophelia; Ophelia triggered nothing, meant nothing, was nothing. Natasha was something, was a trigger. Natasha meant something, if only she could figure it out precisely. It was there, if she was willing to dig down deep to find it.

The Red Room had stolen so much. She would find out exactly what that was.

As Yelena crawled into bed beside Natasha, the Winter Soldier sat in the armchair. All weapons were in easy reach, just in case someone was stupid enough to try attacking them.

"Now we begin Phase One," Yelena said aloud. It was for his benefit, and he nodded briskly at her before turning to look out of the window.

Lying down beside Natasha should have been just calling her bluff when she woke. Only... burrowing into Natasha's side was familiar. Comforting. A balm against painful memories. Their bodies fit well together. Yelena breathed in deeply, and could smell Natasha's scent beneath the soap and shampoo. She had done that thousands of times before...

Yelena remembered everything.

***  
***


	3. Hazy Shadows

Natasha was lying naked on her back in a room she didn't recognize. The walls were painted white, some of it peeling, and heavy black drapes blotted the windows. One lamp was on in the room, casting dingy shadows everywhere. The bed she was lying on was covered with a worn duvet that had once been a brilliant ruby, but was now faded and threadbare in spots. Yelena was kneeling on the bed, holding her arms down above her head, an intense look on her face and blue eyes boring into hers. Her blonde hair was tied behind her in a loose braid, wisps escaping it and making her look almost impossibly young. She was only dressed in an oversized white man's shirt, buttoned up haphazardly and exposing too much skin. Natasha frowned at her, her thoughts fuzzy and blurred around the edges. Where was she? When was she? Was this simply a memory or a dream?

The Winter Soldier was in the room as well, casting shadows along the wall, his face mostly masked by darkness. "Natasha."

He had been the first to call her that. It had always been Natalia or Comrade or Cadet, but when he was alone with her, sometimes he called her Natasha or Natashenko. He had loved her, even when he didn't remember her, and her heart ached badly.

Naked as well, he stroked her limbs gently. "You look the same, but Lena tells me it's been years since we've last seen each other."

That didn't sound right. Years? No, it couldn't have been. Ivan wouldn't have allowed that, not his prized stars in the Red Room. Natasha tried to say something, but her tongue felt thick and swollen in her mouth, glued to her palate as if stuffed with cotton.

"She'll remember, Winter," Yelena whispered, her voice a crooning sound. "Now we can all remember, and it will be just as it was. We are the Red Room now, Natalia," she said, leaning down to kiss Natasha on the forehead. "This is who we are."

No. That was definitely wrong. She was Natasha Romanoff, Agent of SHIELD with Level Nine clearance, Ambassador to Asgard. She was in charge of herself. She controlled her own mind, and she was trusted. Natalia Alianova Romanova was long gone, buried with all the other fractured lives that the Red Room had given her. It wasn't real, not anymore, not the way Natasha was now. She was _Natasha._

He was watching her carefully, looking for the play of emotions in her eyes. What state had they left him in when they put him into the ice? What did he remember? She only remembered fire and desperation, the bite of blades and bullets, a hail of anger and fury. It seemed so distant now, so blurry, a drug induced dream.

"Natasha," he murmured before kneeling at the foot of the bed. He bent his head as he spread her legs apart gently, and she found herself moving them almost of her own volition. She remembered this, her body remembered this, somewhere deep down beneath the haze of forgotten memories and shrouded dreams that the Red Room had left behind. SHIELD therapists hadn't been able to pierce the haze, so she had merely built herself over it. But the foundations were still shaky, still full of holes so large that she hadn't realized that entire lives were hidden inside of them still.

She cried out when his lips came to her flesh, licking into her with the same slow, careful strokes that she remembered. "Winter," she tried to say, and then Yelena was kissing her, tongue sliding into her mouth and moistening the desert there. She cradled Natasha's breast in her hand as the Winter Soldier worked her open with his tongue and then his fingers, bringing her climax quickly. She remembered this, oh, how had she forgotten? Then he was inside her, hands on her hips, even the metal one, and he could crush the bone between those cold fingers but he never would. He would never hurt her, not like that, it was only his absence that ever hurt when she was young and needy and thought she was so strong. Buried to the hilt, Winter studied her response, as if testing it against his own fractured memory. Slowly, he started to rock his hips, and she remembered that feeling, that slide of his skin against hers, the way her body opened to his and responded to his touch. There was no artifice here, no twisting the intent or emotion or desire. They simply were, tangled together and leaning on one another for stability in the quicksand that the Red Room left them in.

Yelena cradled her when she came, shuddering beneath them, nearly sobbing. Everything ached, burning beneath the haze of thoughts that couldn't quite resolve into something clear. Natasha couldn't remember a time when she felt free. The Red Room prevented that. They were always watching, always, and anything real could be broken and used against her.

But she hadn't been with the Winter Soldier at the same time as Yelena. It was working on missions, short bursts of intense reaction and emotion. He was protective of her, and always remembered her no matter what name or personality overlay they gave her. Being with Yelena had been trying to stave off the darkness for a time.

This made no sense, nothing made sense.

The next thing that Natasha could recall clearly was sitting up on the worn out bed, thighs aching and sticky, her hair hanging down in front of her face in clumps. Yelena gave her a glass of water that didn't taste right, but there was no option but to drink it down. Her mouth was so dry and awful tasting, and Yelena was apologizing for the rusty pipes and derelict conditions.

"But you were with Ophelia," Natasha said, looking up at her blearily, her words slurring a little around the edges. She felt ten again, twelve again, and Ivan would be back soon. Never mind he was dead, they were all dead, the feeling was the same. "She has money. She'll give you whatever you want, won't she?"

"Natalia," Yelena said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "She's outlived her usefulness. I don't need to pretend to care for her anymore. Ophelia means nothing."

Something wasn't right about her words, but her legs buckled beneath her when she tried to stand on her own two feet. Yelena caught her, arms tight around her, lips at her throat. She might have been saying "I love _you,"_ but Natasha couldn't quite make out the words.

"This isn't right," she tried to say, but her words were slurring.

The walls were red. The coverlet was red. Blood was red.

No one ever really escaped the Red Room, did they?

***

Clint had hung up on Loki somewhere in the middle of his anguished screaming. It had sounded like he was trashing the room over at Avengers Tower, and he didn't envy Tony cleaning up the devastation. He remembered vaguely when Loki had gotten self-destructive without Natasha, cutting herself, screaming and looking damn near suicidal. Only vaguely, because Clint really preferred to stay away from Loki if at all possible.

But if Natasha was really gone, there went the buffer zone.

He didn't think Natasha was dead, even with Loki completely losing it. The god jumped to conclusions fairly quickly at times, and it didn't sound as though he had stopped to think of what may have happened or any of the potential consequences. Clint knew nothing of magic or monsters, but he was fairly certain that Loki wasn't the only one capable of undoing whatever bond he and Natasha had. And really, just because it was gone didn't mean Natasha was dead. It could be some sort of spell caster. AIM had some, so why not Hydra? Their leaders were cousins, after all. Maybe they shared ideas.

It was easy to pick the lock on Natasha's hotel room door. There were no signs of a struggle, though he honestly hadn't expected to find any. Her clothes were still hanging up or in her suitcases; she might have been in the room nearly three weeks, but she never liked using the dressers. Using suitcases was a reminder that this was not a long term mission.

Honestly, it looked as though she had simply gone out for breakfast, intending to return. Loki wouldn't have fallen apart so spectacularly if that was the case, however.

On the desk were all the usual tourist brochures about Villach. Every single one was open to the pages about Landskron Castle, even the magazines. Those were carefully folded so that the spines were broken, forcing them to remain open at that page. It hadn't looked that way the night before after dinner, so it was a deliberate move on Natasha's part. She knew plenty about the castle thanks to all of her visits with Sam, so she wasn't researching it for that reason.

Yelena had to have made contact. And she must have known about and threatened Clint, because she wouldn't have gone ahead without him, not when she had been worried about this. Natasha must have suspected her room was bugged.

_Thanks, Tash. Now I have a starting point._

Leaving her things where they were, Clint headed to Landskron Castle.

***

"All right," Sam said, sitting down across from Loki in the common room. There were still traces of his earlier outburst evident, mostly in the shape of holes in the walls, but much of the other damage was already cleared away. Tony had already put in a work order, and expected the holes to be repaired by evening. "This is probably a stupid move on my part," he began, looking intently at Loki's drawn expression. "Explain how this magical bonding thing works so I understand what you're talking about."

Loki stared at him for a long moment. "I've tried explaining it to Stark and Banner."

"Yeah, they mentioned radiation and whatever," Sam said with a dismissive wave. "I don't need to hear that part, it wouldn't make sense to me anyway. I'm a simple guy, so explain it to me in simple terms, so I understand that," he said, pointing at the holes in the wall.

"There is... _history_ between myself and Natasha."

"Do I need the nitty gritty on that relationship?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow, seeing how uncomfortable Loki was feeling. He had gotten vague explanations from Steve and Clint, and Natasha had merely said they had an understanding when he had asked her about it. Sam had to admit, some of this was just to satisfy his morbid curiosity. But at the same time, Natasha had this way of downplaying just how serious things could be.

Looking as though he tasted something sour, Loki nodded sharply. "She humiliated me, so I sought to discredit her among her peers." He paused at Sam's raised eyebrows. "You were unaware of that."

"Well, yeah. Not my business, I guess. But being friends with these guys means I hear things, and the story's not always complete."

"She didn't break. Despite everything, she didn't break."

"Tasha's a tough one," Sam said when Loki lapsed into silence.

"I had used magic, but it didn't influence her the way I thought it would. She didn't break, and wasn't frightened of me when I came to her. She even saved me from Amora."

"Yeah, I hadn't heard of that one, either." Sam shrugged when Loki stared at him. "Look. Tasha doesn't talk much of stuff. She said you guys had an understanding, and you know how she can be, right? An understanding doesn't explain holes in walls."

"The magic between us," Loki began slowly, painfully. "It gave me a sense of where she was, how safe she was."

"Like a comfort thing," Sam supplied helpfully.

"I suppose," Loki said, looking at Sam suspiciously.

He loved her, Sam realized suddenly. He hadn't really thought about it earlier, but in his own defense it had been four o'clock in the morning. Four am was _never_ a good time of day as far as Sam was concerned, and this was further proof of it.

"But it was never meant to some kind of indicator that she was alive or dead." Though Loki frowned, he shook his head. That let Sam press on. "So she might not be dead. And if I had to bet on it, I'd say she's still alive."

"Why?"

"Dude, you've seen how she moves, right? The woman can take out twenty guys in heels and not break a sweat."

"But she was afraid of Yelena."

Sam wasn't sure if Loki was aware how tearful he sounded, but decided not to point it out. No fighter ever wanted to be told he was about to cry. It wasn't manly or brave in most of their minds, and Sam didn't think Loki was any different. "Natasha said she used to be a friend. They got the same training. I know if my buddies came back from the dead, I wouldn't want to kick their asses, either. But if it's got to be done, it's got to be done. And she's that way. For all she's a spy, she's got the discipline of a soldier."

"She can't die, Sam," Loki said softly, eyes sliding away from the devastated walls.

"I get that, I do." Sam paused. Did he just talk down the god of mischief _twice?_ Too bad he couldn't put that on his resume. "Listen. This magic thing. It looks like you can do some pretty badass shit with it if you want to."

"Within reason. There are classes of spells in each category of magic."

"O-kay. Is there a way you can try to track her down? Even without the bond?"

Loki paused for so long that Sam was almost convinced Loki ignored him. _"Galdr_ or runic magic may work, but are not easy to do on this realm. I can try to find her _spá,_ the lines her future path would take. It is quite difficult, and may not be accurate. Few know how to read the _spá_ completely."

"Hey, man, whatever gives us a starting point, right? Clint's on the ground there, you work your magic thing. I'm pretty sure Steve will try to work the SHIELD angle."

"And you?" Loki demanded. "How will you search for her?"

Sam grimaced. "Unfortunately, I can't. I'd love to help, don't get me wrong, but I got to get back to work the day after tomorrow. My vacation time is up, and I've got a full day there. It's not the same as being out in the field and I don't have a boss telling me what to do 24-7, but I still got responsibilities to take care of. A lot of them don't have anybody else. I can't leave those guys behind, either."

Loki nodded after a moment. "Would you need my assistance?" he asked finally.

"You did promise you'd come by. And it might take your mind off the waiting time." Sam leaned back in his chair a little. "It's good and bad, working with these guys. You know you're making a difference, giving them a shoulder to lean on and you know how it goes. But at the same time, you could also be ripping open wounds you thought were closed. It was like that for you when you were Lisa, right? That's why you couldn't do more than just sit in the back and man the refreshment tables."

"My assistance then was unnecessary," Loki replied stiffly.

"Help is help." Sam got up to head to the kitchen, wanting another cup of coffee. "Some days are good, you know? You get a lot done, someone tells you how you saved their life, kept them from blowing off the top of their head. Other days, it's not so good. Someone shoots themselves in the chest or takes a knife to the arm." Loki blanched but remained silent. "Yeah. It's a rough job that I've got. But you have to keep going. You have to think that you're making a difference, even if it's only one life."

"Why?" Loki asked, appearing confused.

"Why else are we here, man? It's not hard to go around knocking people when they're down, hurting others just because you can. That's chaos. Entropy. That's easy. That happens without you having to lift a finger. But when you put in effort... that's how you know it's worthwhile. That's how you know what you do matters." Sam looked at Loki evenly. "You've got magic and power and know how. So what are you going to use it for? You'll look for Natasha, but what else are you going to use it for?"

"I don't know," Loki admitted after a moment.

"Well, thinking on that might be something else to distract you. Because I don't think Yelena is going to make it easy on any of us."

***

If Clint thought that he was going to find obvious signs of a struggle at the castle, he was sorely disappointed. Tourists were in and out of the castle to see the falconry or views, or wanted to eat at the restaurant. It wasn't some morbid location full of ghost stories and murder.

There wasn't much point in keeping to his cover any longer. If Natasha was in danger, she needed SHIELD at her back, not an expat with no connections. Talking his way into security wasn't difficult, and they initially balked at giving him access to security tapes, even if the castle security staff was with him. He had no qualms about having them talk with Sitwell; that was simply to be expected when you were the handler for Strike Team Delta as far as Clint was concerned. Sitwell confirmed that Natasha had a GPS tracker still pinging in Villach, and that she and Clint had been tracking a terrorist organization. The guards were extremely helpful after that conversation, and Clint managed not to roll his eyes or make a snarky remark at their expense. They didn't know who he was, after all. They sat with him and scrolled through surveillance data from the night before.

It was dreadfully boring until just after ten o'clock. Natasha walked through the field of one camera into another. Clint watched as she started talking with someone who barely registered on the camera field, as if she knew exactly where they were. Natasha approached slowly, until she was right at the edge of the camera's field of vision. She was yanked out of the camera's view, Yelena's hand clearly around her throat.

Loki couldn't feel their bond anymore, and was certain only death could sever it.

Clint was sure Natasha was still alive. Yelena was a lot savvier than they had wanted to give her credit for, sure. But she wouldn't kill Natasha just yet if they were meeting in a public place. No, her stance, what Clint could see of it, implied that Yelena was feeling confident and wanted something. Considering she had been Ophelia's girlfriend, she likely didn't want or need anything that Hydra could give her. It had to be something that only Natasha would know, maybe something related to the Red Room training they had.

As soon as he left the castle, Clint called New York and asked to speak with Sitwell. "The video looks bad, but she's pinging here in Villach somewhere, you said. Could there be a hit out on Natasha? Someone willing to sell her to the highest bidder, make her be a mercenary again, something like that?" he asked. "I don't have solid evidence, but I don't think Natasha is dead. If Yelena was interested in simply killing her, I'm sure there would have been a body prominently displayed somewhere in the city as a warning."

Sitwell breathed in deeply. "I'll look into that, Agent. It's an angle I hadn't thought about when Yelena Belova's name first came up on the radar."

"In the meantime, I'll keep looking here. I'm bound to find something." He hoped so, at any rate. But odds were good that if Yelena didn't want to be found, he wouldn't find any clues pointing to her whereabouts.

***

Natasha had her wrists tied together, the rope attached to a hook overhead as she knelt on a bed with plain white sheets. No, that wasn't right, this wasn't exactly like the faded memories she had tried to bury. She had been punished once in the Red Room where her wrists had been tied to an A frame, and she had been stripped naked, her clothes ripped from her body roughly before a cane had been applied to her back and thighs. Punishment in front of the other girls for weakness, for failing to do what had to be done. Had she already been with Winter then? She couldn't remember, it was all blurry around the edges.

Yelena had come to her afterward, when she was left on the A frame "to think about her crimes," and she was in nothing more than a white shift. "Natalia," Yelena had whispered, cradling her face in her hands. "How could they do this to you?"

"Easy," Natasha had replied, voice thick with pain. "I failed."

Yelena had been too young for missions at that point. She hadn't been ready, hadn't been with the program as long as Natasha. She was the best and brightest, Yelena was starting out. She didn't understand what it meant, what the price of failure was. She didn't have the memory of a Makarov pressed into her palm at age seven, shooting down another girl who couldn't complete a mission. _Show us what you can do._

Sagging against the A frame, Natasha didn't resist when Yelena kissed her lips softly. "Natalia, I can't get you down, I'm sorry."

"Go back to bed, Lena. They'll punish you if they see you here."

Something fierce burned in her eyes then. "I won't leave you like this. You shouldn't be in pain. It wasn't your fault."

"Failure is always my fault. They punish the weak here, remember?"

Refusing to leave, Yelena shook her head and brushed her fingers along the budding rise of Natasha's breasts. "I can help, Natalia. Maybe I can make the pain go away for a little while. You won't feel as lonely in the dark."

"Shadows are our friends," Natasha tried to say, though her smile faltered and her head drooped with the pain. "I don't want them hurting you, Lena."

"I'm small. They won't catch me."

"Lena..."

Yelena kissed her again, soft and sweet, tongue sliding along Natasha's lips. One of her hands cupped a bare breast, the nipple pebbled and hard from the cold. Her other hand slid down her stomach to the juncture of her thighs, through the soft tangled hair. Natasha whimpered a little at the contact, but Yelena touched her softly, reverently, until Natasha was whimpering with desire and not fear. "I'll take care of you, Natalia," she whispered against Natasha's ear, fingers slicked and deep inside of her, curling until they found the spot that made her back arch against the welts on her back from the caning. "I'll always be here," Yelena promised.

It was years later now, Natasha was older and no longer thought Yelena remembered. But her lips closed over Natasha's breast, tongue laving at the nipple as her fingers slid between her spread thighs. Natasha blinked to try to clear the fog from her head, to erase the ghostly afterimages in her mind. "Lena..." she rasped.

Her fingers slid home, deep and sure, remembering the rhythm that had brought Natasha to gasping despite her fears of being caught. "Natalia," Yelena whispered against her skin, her face pressed between her breasts. Yelena's fingers pulled at Natasha's breast, making her cry out at the shock of pleasure. "Oh, how I dreamed of this."

Natasha moaned, arching into her touch. She panted, feeling her body tighten as she approached orgasm. Yelena stroked her until she came with a sharp cry muffled against her arm. Yelena licked a stripe down her stomach, then moved to lick at Natasha's clit while her fingers continued to pump into her.

She startled badly when a pair of hands moved to cup her breasts from behind, one of them cold metal. "Sh," the Winter Solder murmured, nipping at her shoulder. "Natasha," he whispered into her ear, his erection pressed up against the curve of her buttocks. "We're here. We're with you again. You're not alone."

But she hadn't been alone, she wanted to say. She had friends, she had colleagues, she was wanted and admired, revered and maybe even loved. Natasha couldn't answer, not with her breath rasping in her chest, Yelena's mouth between her legs and the Winter Soldier behind her for support. Once Yelena coaxed another orgasm out of her, she rose up to her knees and kissed her full on the mouth, tongue sliding into her mouth. Natasha could taste herself on Yelena's tongue, and she moaned as she felt the Winter Soldier's cock slide into her, full and thick and oh so welcome. She ached badly, pinned between the two of them, Yelena's fingers rubbing at her clit as the Winter Solder thrust up into her. Natasha cried out, overwhelmed and oversensitive, pulling on the ropes around her wrists as she writhed between them.

Natasha didn't know whose name to call out when they wrung out another orgasm, and she simply sagged.

The Winter Soldier untied her at Yelena's nod, and Natasha tumbled into his arms. Oh, that was familiar, too. She was sprawled sideways across the bed, loose-limbed and exhausted. Yelena came back into her visual range, wearing nothing but a smile and carrying a syringe. Despite Natasha's weak protests, Yelena brought the needle to her arm. The Winter Solder held Natasha still for the injection, his expression impassive.

Natasha choked as she felt the burn, and slid back under into oblivion.

All hail the Red Room.

***

The GPS tracker was covered in clotted blood and was discarded haphazardly outside a fast food restaurant. The scratches on its surface indicated that a sharp blade with a smooth edge had cut the tracker out of Natasha's arm. While Clint was glad he wasn't finding Natasha's body, this also made his job infinitely harder. He didn't imagine that Yelena would let her leave little clues for him along their journey.

Fuck getting permission from Sitwell, he was breaking into Ophelia Sarkissian's house.

The house itself was an understated yet very obviously expensive home at the edge of Villach, set back from the road. There were wide, manicured lawns and trees all around, as well as extensive gardens with brightly colored flowers. There was no apparent sign of life around the house, and any security devices were cleverly hidden and unobtrusive. That didn't mean invisible; Clint knew the usual places to look and his keen eyesight meant he found the cameras and sensors without physically being in their line of sight.

Not one of them had any indicators that made it easy to tell if they were on. Of course Sarkissian would make his life difficult. Of course.

Staking out the house throughout the day was an exercise in frustration. He saw _no one_ enter or exit the house. Tapping into the wireless network revealed no traffic. No one was using the phone line. The more he thought about it, the more this was downright suspicious and a little bit creepy. Steve had been certain that Ophelia wasn't in Vienna, and had told office staff she was heading to Villach with her girlfriend Yelena.

And as everyone kept repeating, Yelena was potentially crazy. It all depended on what triggers or personalities surfaced. Natasha only came in to SHIELD's graces because she was tired of fighting and killing, and she had been in full control of herself at the time. There was no way to tell what state of mind Yelena would be in.

Once night fell and no lights came on in the house, Clint cursed under his breath. He could break in, but he hated going through big houses like this on his own in the dark. Beneath the cover of darkness, he crept across the lawn and picked open the lock on the back door. It was pathetically easy, which paradoxically only made Clint feel even more distressed. He had his bow and a pistol, but what if that wasn't enough?

Feeling silly and brave at once, Clint snapped on all the lights as he went through the house, black leather gloves on his hands. It wouldn't do to leave prints behind, after all. The mudroom was pristine, as was the kitchen.

Every knife in the butcher's block was missing.

Dread rising, Clint continued to move through the house, Glock at the ready, his finger on the trigger guard. He moved as silently as he could, glad he at least wore the rubber soled boots that he had brought with him. It didn't feel right as he went through the house, and not just because he was breaking and entering. No one was challenging him. No one was noticing that all the lights were on. There was no noise other than from his own movements.

In the den was a splash of blood on the floor. Nothing in the room seemed to be disturbed, and the splash looked to be more like an arterial spray. He didn't like thinking of how he knew that fact; arrows hitting the throat made a mess, and it wasn't that quick a kill.

One of the bathroom mirrors had a large circular break in it, as if a head had been smashed into it repeatedly. Clint could even see blood and bits of hair within the broken shards of glass. Even worse, in the bedroom connected to that bathroom, Clint found three severed fingers on the floor, drops of blood spattered in a path away from them. The fingers had been cut off after the second joint but before the finger met the hand. What could cut through bone that cleanly?

Gut churning, Clint continued through the house, checking each and every room. He was starting to get a very good idea of why no one had been moving in the house, or why no one had seen Ophelia Sarkissian in a while.

That was it on the first floor. He could go down into the basement or up to the second floor. Too many horror movies had things happen in the basement, so Clint went upstairs.

He should have gone to the basement.

Partway down the hall at the top of the stairs was a series of footprints and blood spatters leading from one room to another. Knowing it was a chickenshit move, Clint went to the room that the tracks led to first. The door opened easily, and the tracks continued into the room. It was a large, elegant bedroom, with matching dressers, mirror, desk and chairs. In the center of the room was a four poster king sized bed that had gauzy draped fabric tied to it. There were partly open doors to his left that led to a large walk in closet. To his right was an open door leading to a bathroom. The bloody trail led to the massive bed, then off to the bathroom.

Lying on the bed was Ophelia, eyes shut and arms flung to the sides as if in sleep. Her throat was cut so deeply her head was nearly severed from her body. Clint could see bone in the gaping wound, and sucked in a breath to keep from throwing up. The expensive bedding had soaked up the blood and bodily fluids, staining them almost black.

Clint backed out of the room and took some cleansing breaths. Okay. He could handle this. It wasn't the first time he had seen death, after all. And it looked as though Ophelia never knew what hit her, and she had been killed in her sleep. Whatever blade that had severed those fingers downstairs likely had cut into her neck, killing her before she could wake. The edges of the wound had been fantastically clean, indicating it was a single slice from a sharp blade.

"All right," he told himself. "No more delays."

Following the bloody trail, Clint went into the other room. The stench hit him hard, and he swallowed down his gorge until his stomach settled. In this room were several bodies, different sets of them with different manners of death. The ones closest to the door were three robed figures impaled on spikes. The spikes were anchored into the floor with flagpole braces, and ran up under the long robes through the body. Each head had been yanked back, opening the mouth in a silent scream to accommodate the point of the spike passing through it in a manner like Vlad Tepesh's classic execution style. Forcing himself to look past the mode of death, Clint examined them more closely. Each robe had various runes and designs worked into it that reminded Clint of the bracelet that Loki had made for the Avengers while a female. A number of the designs were cut into, and Clint could only assume it made those protections worthless.

The three bodies were likely a warning. Behind the three were four older women in what had once been pristine white robes. Their faces betrayed none of the anguish their deaths must have caused them. They had been disemboweled, their rib cages cracked wide open and hearts removed. A few of the missing kitchen knives were scattered around the bodies, edges dulled from use. The hearts were in a pile in the center of the room, along with a hand missing three fingers, a foot and a left arm. Two guards in the corner of the room were the apparent donors of the hand, foot and arm. Their expressions were far less calm than those of the women; one of them had traces of vomit on his chest and mouth and the other had been the one whose head was beaten into the bathroom mirror downstairs.

Beyond the four robed women were two older men that looked like they were functioning as scribes, and another wearing various jeweled amulets and rings. Clint could only imagine that he was the one directing whatever magic had been performed there. That would explain why his head was chopped off, his body doused with acid and pinned down with candlesticks. The two scribes had also been opened up from throat to crotch, their floater ribs removed and jammed into their eye sockets.

The blood had long since dried in clumps and streaks all over the floor. The footprints moved around the room like a horrible dance step outline. Clint couldn't find any other bodies in the room or any other indication as to what had happened there prior to the murders.

Carefully stepping back out into the hall, Clint clutched his phone tightly and took several deep breaths. He couldn't get the stench of death out of his mouth and nose, the image out from the backs of his eyelids. He was dialing SHIELD headquarters before he even realized what he was doing, then stopped. They didn't know what to do about this, and were already looking for Yelena. All they would need to know was that Ophelia and a number of mages were dead; the only mages that Ophelia would know would be through her cousin Ekaterina. Perhaps that was all of AIM's mages.

Clint erased his contact number for SHIELD and instead dialed Steve at Avengers Tower. "I can't believe I'm saying this," he said after Steve picked up, "but we're going to need Loki's help on this one. I need him to come to Austria."

***

When Natasha next woke up, she was alert and cognizant of her surroundings. The coverlet was a different color, the windows were in the wrong place and the door hinges were on the opposite side. She was in a different hotel room, then. How had she missed being transported?

She was bound to the bed, lying sideways compared to where the headboard would be, with the leather restraints running to the corners of the bed. Yanking on them caused the bed frame to creak; they were likely attached to the frame or wheels, as there was no headboard or footboard to attach anything to. The creak alerted the Winter Soldier that she was awake, and dislodged Yelena from where she was lying on the bed. Natasha tilted her head back and saw the armchair where the Winter Soldier was on guard, in full armor and with his weapons beside him or strapped into the armor within easy reach. While his expression remained impassive, his eyes didn't look nearly so dead when his gaze fell on her.

"Winter," she said, her voice coming out like a rough croak.

"You need water."

"I need to get out of here."

"You fought me," Yelena said, sliding her hand over Natasha's bare stomach. "You hit our dear Winter, took me by surprise. You were too sedated, we thought. But you still fought me." She sat up and moved to get another glass vial and syringe.

"That's killing me, Yelena," Natasha rasped. "It's making me sick."

"Oh, no. It's making you better." She sounded so happy, so sure of herself. There was even a bright grin on her face when she turned back toward Natasha.

"Yelena…" It took a moment for her vision to make sense of what she was seeing. "There's blood in your hair."

That didn't bother her in the slightest. "Must be the clerk's. He was getting nosy. After this," she said, waving the syringe, "I'll wash up and we'll go."

"Where?" Natasha asked, eyes widening in fear as the syringe approached her arm. She was bound, there was nowhere she could go to escape it.

"Wherever the fuck I feel like," Yelena chirped.

In went the syringe, out went her consciousness.

***  
***


	4. Beyond Numbers

Loki had been just as horrified and disgusted by the deaths in Ophelia's home as Clint had been, which oddly enough helped him feel better about calling him in. Natasha had told him that Loki didn't always see death up close, which made it easier to justify his actions to himself. People were just numbers then, abstract concepts that didn't mean much. That allowed him to slaughter without blinking or feeling remorse. He didn't kill for the sake of killing and wasn't a mercenary for some kind of terrorist group. Loki simply existed now, and it was disheartening to see what a lack of purpose did to Loki.

Beneath the bloody footprints around the groups of victims had been chalked markings and remnants of herbs. Clint hadn't noticed those before, but saw it now that Loki pointed it out to him. "So what does it all mean?" Clint asked him once they were back out in the hallway.

"One set was working on a binding spell of some sort," Loki began with a frown. "Those nearest the door were working on protection. Not of themselves, but to be sent out elsewhere."

"The ones in the back, what about them? The scribes and director?"

"I would guess that the one you call director was sending the energies created elsewhere. The two were writing in a bastardized runic script. They could have been attempting a runic spell of some sort."

"Of some sort?" Clint asked.

 _"Bastardized runic script,"_ Loki enunciated. "It wasn't a true spell."

Clint put aside the urge to hit Loki with some effort. "Maybe not to you, but what did they think they were doing?"

"Another binding spell."

"Then I guess the real question is, who where they binding? Because it wasn't Ophelia. The one that killed the mages killed her, too."

"Why do you think it was one individual?"

"Only one pair of bloody footprints in that room."

Loki paused; he hadn't noticed that detail and didn't want to be impressed with Clint. Well, the feeling was mutual. "If this is why I can't feel Natasha…"

"These people have been dead for weeks."

Though his jaw worked, Loki said nothing. After a moment, he strode back into the room and started speaking in Alltongue, occasionally making complicated hand gestures. As he did so, some of the victims began to develop a shimmering afterimage of themselves next to their bodies. They began to move around as if alive, and Clint could only guess that they had been created to reenact the victims' final moments.

Clint would be impressed if he allowed himself to be. As it was, he squelched down any admiration and forced himself to remain impassive at the sight.

The images moved backward from the time of death; they lay still on the floor for a long time, then shifted into the sprawled position of someone that collapsed from standing. The ghostly images moved to the standing positions they had been in, though they seemed to be coughing and choking. Loki stared intently at each group as time continued to flow backward for the shadowy figures.

The binding spells appeared to be applied to something that was moved from one group to another, almost like an assembly line. "A spell proxy," Loki declared suddenly, pointing at the room overall. "A series of spells cast on an object, to be released at a later time," he explained when he saw Clint's blank look. "Then the slaughter occurred once it was complete. That was likely done to mask the purpose of the spells and nature of the proxy."

"Yelena, then," Clint said, looking away from the room. "Small feet, hooked up with the Sarkissians and their mages, disappeared around the time these people were killed."

"But the death of a caster does not require this level of savagery." Loki frowned at Clint for a moment. "Could this be why Natasha was afraid? She knew this woman could be capable of such viciousness and cruelty?"

Clint sighed. "I hate to break it to you, Loki," he said heavily, "but so is Natasha."

***

Bleary-eyed, Natasha watched Yelena expertly swab down her arm in the antecubital fossa, the veins evident thanks to the tourniquet on her upper arm. She was starting to look like a heroin addict from the track marks, and Yelena had similar marks on her own arms. "You need your medicine," Yelena chirped, a grin on her face. But it didn't look right, and everything swam dizzyingly in front of Natasha's eyes.

"I'm not sick," Natasha tried to say, but the syllables were garbled and nausea hit her hard.

"It'll make you strong," Yelena continued. "The best anti-aging elixirs and neural reconditioners that Hydra could develop. We don't have the chair, but we won't need it. No need to scrub Winter clean. They always do it before he goes on ice." Was that right? Natasha had thought it was done after he woke, if he was too unstable. Too many erasures could be dangerous. "He's clean, our darling Winter is," she crooned, sliding the needle into Natasha's arm. "We're already scrubbed clean, and I'm putting in the trigger fail safes that we need."

No, no, no. SHIELD got rid of her triggers. Didn't they?

Natasha tried to say something, though her words fell away from her, skittering like stones across a linoleum floor. Nadia had grown up in a small council flat in Brixton, everything worn away and nothing new. She was pretty, sure, but not too bright. She knew she would wind up in an estate system, if not the same one she was born in. Only the clever ones got away...

No, wait. She wasn't really Nadia. That had simply been a cover identity she had used when she was thirteen.

Pushing herself up to a seated position, the room swam. Natasha opened her mouth, only to be violently ill. Yelena clucked in a maternal manner, pulling her hair away from her face. "Yes," she said sympathetically. "They couldn't eliminate that side effect. The dopamine and serotonin balance, they said."

She looked at Yelena, tears in her eyes from the force of vomiting. Speaking wasn't working well, but pulling away the sorry excuse of a shirt made her understand. Natasha was bundled into the shower, under the hot water and pressed against the cold tiles once completely naked. She shivered violently, crossing her arms over her breasts when she saw Yelena's possessive gaze. Something wasn't right here, but her thoughts were too confused to figure out what it was. Seeing Yelena strip out of her clothes didn't help clarify matters, either. They'd done this before, hadn't they?

"It's time to get clean," Yelena chirped, her eyes almost glassy.

Conditioning. Triggers. Yelena's mind was still full of fucking landmines.

Yelena stepped into the shower with her and started wiping at her body with a washcloth. "I remember this, don't you?" she purred. "The one corner in the showers without cameras. The one place we knew we could have privacy in there."

"Yes," Natasha whispered shakily. "I remember."

Once Natasha's body was scrubbed clean, Yelena tossed the washcloth aside. The grin on her face was almost predatory. "Good."

Crowding into Natasha's space, Yelena kissed her hungrily, mouth open and tongue sliding along her lips. Natasha held onto Yelena's shoulders for balance, sliding her tongue against Yelena's. It had happened before, and her memories were fuzzy, blending in together. Years ago, Natasha had returned from a mission, but it had been a near thing. Though the outer layers of clothing had been clear, the blood had been on the inner layers and smeared across her skin. She had been calm, but had retreated to scrub the filth from her skin as soon as possible. Yelena had seen her, and followed her into the showers. Tenderly, she had helped scrub Natasha clean. Their lips met, a tangle of tongues and arms around each other.

It was different now, yet the same; two timelines were superimposed over each other. Yelena stroked Natasha's breast, flicking the nipple enough to make her gasp with need. That was enough of an invitation for Yelena to slide a hand down Natasha's stomach. Then she curled her fingers up against Natasha's clit and started stroking, the running water giving her a bit of lube to get it going. Natasha clung to Yelena's shoulders and let her head fall back against the tile; years ago, Yelena had bent her head to suckle a breast as she brought off Natasha with her fingers the first time.

From there, memory and reality meshed exactly. Dropping to her knees after Natasha came with a muffled cry, Yelena looked up Natasha with a mischievous grin on her face. She leaned forward to kiss her mons, then lifted one leg. Putting it over her shoulder, Yelena now had access to Natasha's sex. She leaned in enough to get her mouth _right there,_ holding her open with both hands, then licked into Natasha. Crying out at the sensation, Natasha grasped the back of Yelena's head with one hand and braced herself against the tile with the other. The running water muffled the noise that Natasha made, which was rather the point in the Red Room. In the motel room it didn't matter, but it was best not to attract attention.

Natasha let go of the back of Yelena's head and shoved that fist into her mouth to muffle her cries as she came. She slowly slid down the wall, legs trembling and unable to support her weight. Yelena helped ease the way, crooning "My darling girl, my darling Natasha," the entire time. "I'm here, I'm here. I've got you. I'll keep you safe."

Only, there was no way to fulfill that promise in the Red Room. No one was safe. No one was ever safe, it was simply a question of how damaged they would be at the end of it, if superior officers would order them to their death. But years ago, the two of them had promised to look out for each other, to protect each other if they could.

Seated on the floor, Natasha watched as Yelena approached her. This was different from the Red Room; both girls had wound up sprawled on the floor, mouths and arms tangled together, rutting against each other's thigh. Now, Yelena straddled Natasha, lifting one leg top rest her foot on the edge of the tub. She smiled expectantly at Natasha, who understood and leaned forward to lick into Yelena, grasping her hips with both hands to keep her steady.

"Better," Yelena gasped, grasping a fistful of Natasha's hair at the base of her skull, holding her in place. "God, I've missed you so much, Natalia. My Natalia, our Natashenko. We won't be apart again," Yelena moaned. "They're dead, they're dead," she sing-songed, hips jerking as she approached orgasm. She started to laugh and shake, her hand clenching Natasha's hair so tightly that there was real risk of it being pulled out of her scalp. "They're all fucking _dead._ Darling, all enemies of the Red Room are dead. And if they're not, they will be."

Once Yelena came, she let go of Natasha and allowed her to fall back against the sides of the shower stall. She was dizzy from holding her breath as she worked on Yelena, as well as from the earlier bout of vomiting and side effects from the drugs. Closing her eyes, Natasha focused on her breathing, on maintaining it as evenly as possible. Yelena didn't even notice, she merely wrapped herself up in towels and left the bathroom. Natasha shut off the water with her toes, keeping her eyes shut and working from memory where the faucet was.

Her sense of time was off. Perhaps she even fell asleep. But she was next aware of being lifted out of the shower stall, of freezing metal on her back. Startled awake, Natasha's eyes flew open and she stared at the Winter Soldier. "Winter," she gasped, shivering.

"There are always side effects," he intoned.

"Tell her to stop giving me these drugs," she insisted, grasping his shirt front. "The triggers were taken out of my head, I promise you. I got wiped clean. All she's doing is making me sick."

But the Winter Soldier merely carried her out of the bathroom and laid her back down on the bed. Yelena was sitting at the desk, working on something in a folder. An array of small glass vials was on the desk beside her, as well as the 24 gauge needles and syringes. She was humming a jaunty tune, something vaguely familiar.

Then Natasha remembered why it was so familiar. It was Starkovsky's favorite song, something he hummed to himself as he perused the Black Widow dossiers, the tune he had hummed when he was "judging" Natasha's skills. The fucking pervert.

"Yelena," she managed to say. "Don't give me those." She pushed herself up to a sitting position and swung her legs off of the bed. At that point, the Winter Solider placed his metal hand against her sternum and pushed, sending her sprawling across the bed again. "They're making me sick and _I don't have any triggers._ The overlays are gone, Yelena."

It was obvious Yelena wasn't listening, and had instructed the Winter Soldier to stop her. He kept his hand on her chest and moved so that he could sit beside her. Obviously, he had been instructed to do this prior to waking her up. Yelena continued humming that damned song, a vacant smile on her face.

Good God, echoes of Starkovky's face were etched into her expression.

The Winter Soldier grabbed her arm and laid it flat on the bed. "You will lie still, Natalia," he told her without inflection. She had heard that plenty of times before, and had been punished when she didn't follow directions. But she couldn't follow these directions, she couldn't listen, she had to escape somehow. It couldn't be _now,_ not when she was pinned to the bed as Yelena drew up more of those fucking drugs and didn't explain a damn thing. They did something terrible to her mind and body; she could feel it and knew that it was worse than the injections she had received in the Red Room. These injections burned as they went in, made her violently ill and screwed up her sense of time and continuity. There was no way to tell if her reaction time was slowed or her reflexes diminished, because she was constantly in and out of consciousness. Or altered states of consciousness.

Loki must have been going out of his mind. Natasha couldn't feel the bond that existed between them, and wasn't sure if it was all of these injections interfering with the spells. Normally, she could tell in a general sense where Loki was. Right now, she felt nothing at all.

More injections, more burning-stinging-nauseating-pain. More shimmering memories blending in with the present moment.

The Winter Soldier was holding her down. He watched her closely as she writhed and gasped in pain, nearly screaming, Natasha could feel the tears streaming out of the corner of her eyes, though she couldn't remember when she had started crying again.

"The pain passes," he told her with absolute certainty. "You've only forgotten what it feels like, but you know how it is."

Because he knew what pain was like, he knew how good intentions were always the excuse given when it cost blood and bone and pain. The Winter Soldier was nothing if not resilient; he had to be. The chair. The freezing. The bite guard and electricity and injections. Oh, she had seen it all at one point, her beautiful Winter strapped in and screaming around the bite guard. Her horror had been unparalleled, gorge rising when she realized just what Department X was willing to do to its prized agents.

Natasha looked up at him in desperation, trying not to scream, her body bucking beneath his. It gets better, he told her once, his eyes told her now. He held her down when she convulsed, his body pressed all along hers. Yelena laughed and made notes, sounding like Starkovsky when she talked about adjusting doses.

"Help me," she begged Winter before passing out.

"We are," he assured her.

But there was something like doubt in his eyes, too.

***

It was easier getting out of Austria than in thanks to Loki's portal back to Avengers Tower. Clint packed up all of Natasha's things with a heavy heart, and felt like a creep putting them away in her suite. Everyone could hear him muttering, even from down the hall. Loki hung about the edges of the Tower for the first few days, then went to the Brooklyn VA. He actually liked that much better than the soup kitchen that Steve went to. While it was good work there, Loki didn't feel comfortable. Too many cloying people, too many needy mouths. It was a reminder of just how _not good_ he was, how unnatural it was to sacrifice himself for another. He had to be the best, had to succeed at all costs.

Clint had to work within SHIELD parameters, which meant their agents in a field office, Interpol agents and Austrian intelligence agencies. That led to unbelievable amounts of posturing, paperwork and grandstanding. Normally, Loki could tolerate that sort of thing. In fact, he reveled in it, for diplomatic interactions were really just controlled chaos. That wasn't a contradiction in terms: every diplomat worked within their preconceived parameters and protocols, and all Loki had to do was pull the strings and watch them all dance. He sat back and enjoyed the show, letting complaints that he was a manipulator slide right off his back. All the best diplomats and advisors were master manipulators, after all.

But now he was on the receiving end of such a dance, and he didn't like it at all.

The Red Room was considered a defunct training arm of the KGB and then the FSB, which would have dissolved when the Soviet Union fell apart. Interpol wasn't interested in them, not like they were in Hydra, the Hand or Black Spectre. There were individuals that they watched carefully, never able to find anything leading to official charges. That was the sort of thing that used to annoy Natasha and her SHIELD compatriots to no end. Now Loki understood.

Yelena Belova had kept an extraordinarily clean profile over the last ten years, and was only known as a model in Europe. In fact, she had met Ophelia Sarkissian during a Milanese lingerie fashion show, and had scandalized the designer when she pulled Ophelia on stage wearing nothing more than a white lace teddy and thigh high black boots. In front of the entire audience, she had given Ophelia a filthy kiss, then spun her around in a pirouette before sending her back off the runway and blowing a kiss to the rival designer. Apparently, the stunt had been enough to get her into Ophelia's good graces and increase her viability as a model.

Ophelia was dead now. Loki didn't want to admire the long game Yelena had played. She knew that Ophelia would have been there to meet with financiers. The Hydra director fancied women and bold moves, so Yelena gave her both. As quickly as she came onto the modeling scene, she backed out and stayed with Ophelia. That was it for her public persona, but there had to be more to the story. After all, Ophelia also had Emilia, who helped broker the sale and purchases of properties for her. Loki couldn't help but wonder if Yelena had a hand in that as well.

What else did she do or not do?

The Brooklyn VA actually had three campuses for its tertiary care center, located in three boroughs: on the East Side, in Bay Ridge and St. Albans. There were also other outpatient locations for the veterans to get their care. Sam worked at their specialized outpatient PTSD center, which was tightly affiliated with their substance abuse center. Far too many vets relied on some kind of substance to get through the day, whether it was legal medication from their psychiatrists or the illegal ones they found easily on the street. Sam was proud of his program, which he helped to build from the ground up.

The help that Sam needed was generally easy to do. Loki rearranged chairs, set up the table of refreshments, put out the pamphlets and flyers and signup sheets, and kept an eye out for the attendees that seemed particularly unstable.

One of the men in attendance stared at him a little too long and a little too harshly. "You fucked up the city four years ago," he accused suddenly, interrupting someone else's talk about their nightmares and difficulty expressing them. "It's you, isn't it? You're the asshole that brought the aliens in, aren't you?" Without waiting for confirmation, he launched himself at Loki, bringing his hands up to choke him. _"You killed my sister!"_

Loki could have easily thrown him back, killed him or maimed him. Instead, he simply peeled the man off of his person and held him out at arm's length until Sam could get to them. The others in the room were suddenly very quiet, eyes wide and judging.

Though their gaze felt uncomfortable, as if he was being found wanting, this time, Loki didn't retreat to try to cut apart his skin. "Yes," he told the man simply. "I am Loki of Asgard." A low murmur spread throughout the room. "I am... It's unfortunate about your sister," he said stiffly, giving the man a formal nod. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Fuck you!" the man cried, pushing against Sam's restraining arms. "You don't even care. Why are you here?"

Balancing a ledger for someone that probably could never love him back.

"Atonement," Loki said finally. "My crimes on both our realms have been great."

"I'm not your pet project!" someone cried angrily.

"No, you are not," Loki said gravely. He turned and pointed at Sam. "You're his."

Sam raised an eyebrow at Loki. "Rude," he said mildly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Loki lifted his chin in challenge. "Oh? Even on Midgard, there is no place for those that cannot fit in precisely. Those with fears or nightmares or difficulty _being…_ If they're not labeled mad and forgotten about, they're shunted aside to be fixed." Loki couldn't keep the snarl from his voice. "And if you don't comply with shifting expectations, you're a monster."

"Oh yeah? What was _your_ expectation, then?" someone sneered.

Rage flared in his chest, white hot and nearly uncontrollable. These mortals would dare?

Of course they would. Mortals were stubborn creatures, veterans even more so.

"To conquer. To rule. To always succeed, no matter the cost. To never get caught appearing less than expectations. Not to boast of using magic."

"Why not?"

"It is not a warrior's art."

The simmering rage in his voice was only too evident to everyone in the room, and he couldn't control it. As opposed to speaking with Frigga or Thor, no one in the room was frightened of it, having their own rages to deal with.

"Are you sorry?" a different veteran asked.

"I don't know," Loki answered honestly. "Better me than the alternative."

"What alternative?" another called out from across the room.

Loki crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall beside the refreshment table, jaw set. "Surely you heard of tumult in Asgard?" A few heads nodded reluctantly. "This realm was the original target of Thanos, who would have slaughtered the billions of lives here in his quest to worship death. I managed to extract the promise of ruling this realm. Thousands may have perished, but that is fewer than the billions he wanted. So when taking over this realm failed, he turned his attentions to Asgard."

"We only have your word on that," one veteran scoffed, leaning back in his chair.

"You still killed thousands," a veteran said, her cheeks suffused with a blotchy redness due to her anger. "Good people died in this city!"

Loki shrugged. "It may sound callous, but is it any different from the leaders that send any of you into battle? You're not individuals to them. You're numbers to balance against defeating the enemy. All generals think in that manner. Controlled losses, acceptable risks, nameless rank and file members of the warrior class..." He uncrossed his arms. "When it is war, you cannot count the cost of individual lives."

"God, listen to you!" another veteran called out. Her entire body vibrated with tension, hands clenched into fists. It was impossible to tell if her complexion grew blotchy due to her dusky skin tone, but her eyes flashed in a manner that reminded Loki of Natasha. Her hair was braided tightly to her scalp, and she wore clothing that was formfitting yet not suggestive in the least, as if she didn't want her clothing to impede her ability to defend from attack. Loki recalled that this was PTSD support group, that many of these veterans had difficulty functioning as a civilian, when the threat of war was not something they should respond to. This woman looked ready to pick up a heavy weapon and fire at an enemy combatant.

"Yes?" Loki asked, eyebrow raised and expression cool. "What is it about that statement which troubles you? I assure you, I've studied tactics longer than you've been alive."

"You just don't give a shit about life in general. People don't matter to you. It's all about what you want, isn't it? Fuck everyone else, you're the only one that matters?"

"I didn't say that," Loki replied, though he didn't think she was wrong, exactly. It was more that the people who mattered were far too few in number.

The woman wasn't listening, however, giving Loki the impression that his presence merely tipped her over into a rant she had suppressed for far too long. "Never mind the individuals dying because of someone's shitty judgment call. It's just war, and you almost like killing, don't you? It comes too easy, us vs. them, kill them before they shoot you." Her voice wavered and a reverent hush fell over the group. "Then you get back, and that's a horrible thing. You're not supposed to kill anymore, or talk about it, or like it. You're supposed to act grateful you got back at all, and not talk about killing children and blowing apart villages or watching an IED take out your squad because your CO can't read a fucking map. Or the nightmares and flashbacks when you get back, so you can't stand a backfiring car or the Fourth of July. You can't even watch a movie without diving for cover, without needing to watch your back, people _staring_ like there's something wrong with _you_ when it's the whole world that's fucked up. That it takes everything not to take your service weapon and just blow off the top of your head to make it all go away, make the dreams stop, make the screaming of the dead just _shut up,_ so you can stop thinking about all this bullshit while you're waiting for your life to begin again."

Everyone in the room watched as she crumpled in on herself, crying without tears.

"Generals don't care about that," Loki said quietly. "I don't know about your world, but on mine, many generals never step foot on the battlefield. The good ones do, the brave ones do, but not all of them. Those are the ones that lose more, that call it an acceptable risk."

Before anyone could speak, Loki continued, staring at the distraught woman. "The Chitauri were not my people. They meant nothing to me or to the generals that were of their race. Those soldiers were born and bred only for the purpose of fighting, to earn a glorious death. Their death would help Thanos court Death, and he certainly didn't care for them. I didn't know much about your realm. Why should I, when Asgard is the golden city, the shining example of all that is good in the Nine Realms?" Loki shrugged, indicating the disinterest he once held for Earth and its inhabitants.

"I didn't know or care about your world, so a few thousand deaths instead of seven billion seemed like an acceptable loss. I'd sweep in like a benevolent god and save you from yourselves, show you that free will is only an illusion."

"It's not!" someone said as another shouted "The Avengers beat you!"

The woman looked at him for a long time, distress still evident. "Then who saves you?" she asked finally. "You have nightmares, I can tell. You're just like us, aren't you? Isn't that why you're here?"

"What's to stop us from killing you for what you did to our city?" another veteran asked.

Loki lofted an eyebrow as he stared down that veteran. "Try, if you are so inclined. Even on this realm, I may defend myself from assault. Unfortunately, you would not survive such a thing."

And if that only added to the red in his ledger, they didn't need to know that. His ledger was already drowning in blood.

The woman's lip wobbled a bit and she let out a bark of bitter laughter as she brought the back of one hand to her mouth, rubbing it almost nervously. "You're like us," she said finally. "Look at you. You're at home here. It doesn't bother you if someone threatens to kill you, you threaten right back. It doesn't bother you to talk about wartime and killing and decisions that destroy thousands of lives. You enjoy it, don't you? And I bet Asgard doesn't. I bet that's why you're here and not there. They threw you out, didn't they? You don't fit there, you don't belong. Then you came here and fucked up our city, but even that was a goddamn shit show. Nobody wanted you and you had nowhere else to go, did you? So you're here now and you're with us, because _you're just like us."_

Something snapped in Loki's chest at her words. _They threw you out, didn't they?_ hit a nerve, still raw and exposed. He couldn't help it, his hands were fisted at his sides, the crackle and static of magic building there from the spike in rage. He leaned forward a little, teeth bared in a grimace, rage evident for all to see. Let them fear him, let them cower and quiver and kneel down before him, let them _fear_ what he would do.

_"I am nothing like you!"_

But that only made her laugh, bitter and pained and oh so familiar. "Oh, yes, you are. You're exactly like us, like every one of us in this room."

Sam stepped up finally, hands raised in a placating gesture that clearly was meant to also show he wasn't a threat. No weapons in his hands, no fear in his eyes or expression. He was moderator here, mild mannered and infinitely calm. "That's enough, everybody. Time's up. Same time next week, guys." He looked over at Loki, no censure in his expression. "If you show up, you show up." He looked back over the crowd, some of whom stared at Loki in loathing. "All of you, you know the drill. We do what we can, we keep on going."

Some of the vets shuffled out of the room, glaring at Loki as they left. Some pointedly ignored him, an insult in every aspect of their posture. The woman came up to him, and she was no taller than Natasha, with a very similar defiant stance as she stood there. "You're a veteran," she declared, staring at him boldly.

"I have not fought in your wars," Loki scoffed.

"You move like a fighter," she said. "You've been on the ground. On the front lines." The look she sent him was one of pure appraisal. "If you studied tactics as much as you say, then you did a shitty job of taking over Manhattan. Maybe you did that on purpose."

"And why would I do that?" Loki sneered.

"Because taking over our world wouldn't have gotten you away from the asshole that sent you here to kill us. You would've been his bitch for the rest of your life."

She was perceptive, and he _hated_ that.

"Therese," Sam said warmly, approaching her slowly without looking wary at all. "Good to see you here. Anything I can do to help?"

Therese gave him a blank stare. "No," she said flatly before turning on her heel and leaving.

Loki was pathetically grateful that Sam had intervened, and also resented that he had needed that intervention at all. When they were the only two in the room, Loki leveled a glance at Sam, who seemed as unperturbed as ever. "I'm sorry I ruined the session," he began stiffly. "I will remain at the tower next time."

Sam turned around from where he was collecting pamphlets he had left out. "Aw, man, it wasn't so bad. It turned out pretty damn good, I think."

"What?"

"Yeah. See, Therese there at the end? Well, it's been... Oh, almost seven months that she's been attending group. But in all that time, she's never said a word. Sits there, looks angry, looks ready to hit somebody, but never talked. So you got her to open up. Thanks."

Nonplused, Loki managed not to gape at him. "That was hardly a good talk."

"On the contrary," Sam corrected. "Talking isn't there to make you feel comfortable in a place like this. It's to get it all out. Venting, sharing, seeing you're not alone. That's what this is about, Loki. It's not to make it pretty and palatable. War is dangerous and hard and cruel. Good men and women don't come back, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. Good people, bad people, it doesn't matter. Dead is dead."

"To say such things on Asgard is treason."

"Yeah, well, here in America, we got the First Amendment." At his blank look, Sam pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded. "C'mon. Library time. If you're going to live here a while, you better know about the Constitution and laws and stuff like that."

Loki gave him a disdainful look. "Why would that matter?"

"'Cause you don't have diplomatic immunity," Sam replied flatly. "And you'll know where we're coming from, and what applied to you while you're living here."

He thought of Natasha and the ledger she had foisted on him. "Too many blasted rules."

"Yeah. Sucks sometimes, sure. I mean, why is the speed limit in the City 55 but you cross over into Nassau and it's 65? Stupid, right?" Sam gave him a good natured smile, as if he was in on the joke, though it made no sense to Loki. "But the law's the law. Break too many, what you've got is chaos."

"So?"

"So, people don't do well in chaos. Too much worry, too much stress, too much fear. You need structure. Limits. Knowing how far you can go and still be safe."

Loki was perfectly still as Sam spoke. _Natasha._ She was his limit setter. She kept him safe. Not these laws, not others. Somehow, she was the only one who could do it, because she could never break. No matter how hard he had tried, she did not break.

But perhaps if he let them, her friends could help show him where limits were.

***

"This isn't working," Natasha said, managing to swat at Yelena's arm. She also tumbled off of the bed, which finally made Yelena frown in concern. "What's in that shit?"

"I had all of the top biochemists, pharmacists and mages work on it..."

 _Mages._ No wonder her connection to Loki seemed to be severed.

"All of the research from our location was gone, of course, and whatever was salvaged from other Department X locations were corrupted. Ophelia's people at Hydra did what they could, and we convinced Ekaterina to help, but she was a bitch and thought it was a bad idea." Yelena sounded disgruntled, but still reached for another of the clear glass vials.

"It's not working. It's making me sick. It's fucking up my reaction time," Natasha insisted. For once, her thoughts were clear and linear. She didn't feel about ready to throw up, but knew it was coming as soon as that injection came.

"There's a protocol to follow."

"You're not Starkovsky, so stop acting like him," Natasha insisted. She didn't feel triumphant when Yelena flinched at the accusation.

"I'm going to fix you," Yelena said stubbornly. She drew up the contents of the vial and looked over to where Natasha was bound to the bed. "It's going to be like it was."

"If what it was worked, I wouldn't have burned down the fucking place," Natasha replied with a snarl of anger. "They hurt you. They beat up and froze Winter in front of me just to make a point. We were expendable, Lena. They didn't care about us, about the horrors we had to put ourselves through to get the job done. Do you remember? Your test? The one you warned me about? That boy from Department X and then afterward, reporting to Starkovsky? _Do you remember?_ They didn't care what he did to you. They didn't care how hurt you were..."

Yelena's hand trembled. She must have remembered the trauma of that day. But the syringe was full, and her eyes were distant.

"I won't let them hurt you, Natalia," Yelena whispered, much as she had that day she crawled into Natasha's bed in the dorms, shivering and bruised, lip cut and swollen. "We're going to be better than they ever were."

Before she could ask what Yelena meant by that, the needle slid into her arm.

***  
***


	5. Memory

The Black Widow program didn't carry that name among its residents. They only knew that they were the best and brightest of the Academy. A limited number of slots were allowed into the Elite program, and rumor had it that only twenty-eight girls could ever be in the program. New cadets were admitted only when the Elites graduated.

Natasha had nowhere else to go, and she was well skilled in whatever she was taught. Her first kill had been at age seven, after all. The recoil on the Makarov hadn't been so bad, not really. She had compensated for it on the second kill. Her instructors had been pleased, and by report, her sponsor Ivan Petrovitch Bezukhov had also been pleased. She simply wanted to repay him for saving her as a child. She recalled fire, arms and the chill air beyond the window. Bezukhov had caught her, had promised her mother that she would live. Natasha also had to live up to that promise. He had reminded her of that often enough.

Yelena had been sent to the Academy by her parents. For the good of the country, they had said, but Natasha knew how to listen at shadows. Pyotr Vasilievich Starkovsky would promise her parents anything, and had known that she would be easily given up. The Belova family had far too many children, and too little money. It was a no brainer to trade one pretty little girl for a life of ease and comfort, even if Starkovsky seemed a little too eager to have said pretty little girl under his control. Natasha knew what those looks meant, the way they tracked Yelena and the rest of the girls in the Academy. Natasha was too cold for Starkovsky's tastes, for all of her red hair supposedly meaning she would be a spitfire, but Yelena had round cheeks, blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked like a delicate china doll.

Stealing a glance into Starkovsky's office years later only confirmed that he liked china dolls. He had pictures of his protégés on the walls, all tender blondes that looked like Bru dolls. Yelena never stood a chance once he saw her. If her parents hadn't complied so readily, he might have arranged to have them killed.

Knowing that years later made Natasha wonder if Ivan had been behind the fire that killed her parents. He never had sexual intent toward her, and he always behaved in a rather fatherly kind of way. It was the same with his other protégés as far as she could tell. She wanted to believe that he had taken advantage of coincidence, seeing it as divine providence. It was kinder than thinking he was every inch the same kind of predator as Starkovsky.

"This is another test," the girls were told. "Find out what they know, however you need to."

One by one, at irregular intervals, Academy girls were taken for the test. It went in alphabetical order, so Yelena was the first one to take the test.

She was locked in a room with an older boy. Tall, lean, and proud of himself, stating that Yelena was his graduation present. He expected Yelena to part her legs for him, never mind her obvious younger age, and grew angry when she didn't simply lie back or cower before him. They fought, but there was no way Yelena could win against him. He had seven or eight years on her, seven inches in height and at least sixty pounds. But she fought anyway, screaming as he smashed her face into the floor and raped her, making sure to be as cruel as possible.

As she lay on the floor afterward, he had laughed and gloated. He saw it as a sign of his prowess, that he was truly one of the best in his class. Yelena had coughed and mewled in pain, then asked what he had done to deserve the honor. He had scoffed at first, but she looked pathetic and weak, and simply asked again. So full of himself, he talked about the missions he had run right before this "graduation present." He never even noticed that she was removing one of the pins from her hair, jaw set with determination.

So it was a complete surprise when she swept his legs out from under him and jammed the pin into his eyes.

He howled and she immediately set to pounding on his solar plexus. As he gasped for breath, she caught him in a scissor lock to break both his arms. Pin pressed against his throat, Yelena very painfully extracted the details of every mission he had ever run as part of his program, every name he could think of for his classmates and supervisors. Only when he was out of information did she cut his throat and let him bleed out over the floor.

An hour later, the door opened and Starkovsky had been there, a slick smile on his face. "Very clever, playing the innocent. Very clever indeed."

She had seen the erection in his trousers. Indeed, he made no effort to hide it. Yelena didn't even get up from where she crouched opposite the door. She was covered in blood and bruises, her thighs ached and she was sure that if it hadn't already been removed, her uterus would have been damaged by the rape. "Shall I recount the information you required?" she asked, voice as even as she could make it.

"Not necessary." His smile was like a shark's. "One last component to your test, my dear."

Still Yelena didn't move, watching as he brought in a chair and undid his pants. Starkovsky ultimately had to grab her and force her mouth to his cock, nearly choking her with every deep thrust into her. While she thought about simply clamping her teeth together, biting it off, she also knew that it would signal her death.

"I knew I had to get back to you," Yelena whispered later. "I did whatever I had to do to survive, to come back to your side." She had crawled straight into Natasha's bed from the showers, bruises livid on her pale skin. Natasha had held her tight as she recounted her exam. The other girls hadn't wanted to listen. They thought Yelena was lying, that she had come up with an elaborate story in order to explain away the bruises.

Natasha believed her. Natasha always believed her.

They huddled together in the dark, watching as other girls took their tests. Some returned, some didn't. The ones that returned could never look Yelena in the eye.

And then it was Natasha's turn.

Just as Yelena said, she was taken with the instructions to find out whatever her target knew, by whatever means necessary. Natasha knew that the benefactors all watched, and had guessed that the boys were part of Department X's answer to the Academy. All boys vs. all girls, all of them trained to be the eyes and ears and hands of Mother Russia.

She was not going to let them do to her what they did to Yelena.

There was a boy in the room, just as there had been for Yelena and possibly the other girls. She watched the boy look her up and down. She gave him a serene smile. "What's your name?" she asked, her youth making the sultry note in her voice sound silly.

He was startled a little by that. "Alexei."

Natasha beamed at him. "I like that name."

It eased him a little. "You do?" She nodded brightly and approached him with an easygoing manner. "Hm. I was told that my reward would be waiting for me here if I was good enough."

"Aren't you good enough?" Natasha asked, cocking her head to the side. "I was told I was going to meet someone strong, and I would have to learn from him."

That lie bolstered Alexei greatly. Puffed up and full of his own importance, he gestured for Natasha to sit on the bed beside him. It was little more than an army cot with a thicker mattress and downy comforter, but those were riches compared to the Academy barracks. She couldn't help but pet the comforter with a wistful smile on her face. "Oh, yes, you are very strong, aren't you? Real blankets? They must value you very much."

And just like that, he was all too willing to "teach" her secrets, and with very little urging on her part went into great detail about his missions to prove his point. When he started touching her arm, she didn't shrug him away. Instead, she leaned in a little closer and kept her eyes wide, as if she was so impressed by his prowess.

Alexei licked his lips a little nervously. He had never even asked for her name, after all, but that didn't stop him from touching her thigh. "It gets lonely in the field. You work alone, you know, and there are few comforts to be had."

"What comfort would you need?" she asked, continuing to feign ignorance.

He was actually very gentle, and pleasantly surprised that she was willing to palm his erection to get him ready, and let him take her virginity. Better him than someone like Starkovsky, she figured, and her instructions never said to kill him. Once he was finished, she suggested that they sleep, claiming to be worn out and tired. Again that fed his ego, and he didn't consider her a threat at all. Natasha remained awake, and once Alexei was truly asleep, she slowly crept from the bed and made a show of retrieving his belt and tying it into a noose. "I can slip it over his neck and kill him if you like," Natasha told the room without waking Alexei, "but that's a waste of good talent and resources."

The door slid open. To her surprise, Starkovsky was there, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "I have underestimated you, perhaps."

She followed him as directed, hoping that Alexei wouldn't be killed for his stupidity. Once she was in a separate room alone with Starkovsky, Natasha dared to speak. "I thought I would report to Comrade Bezukhov."

Dark amusement glinted in his eyes. "Ah, yes. Your benefactor. He has been... indisposed for a time. You report to me today."

Standing at strict attention, Natasha made sure she was more than an arm's length away from Starkovsky. She ignored his ravenous gaze as she made her report, detailing all the missions Alexei had been on. When she was done, she remained at attention. He licked his lips and beckoned her closer, one hand moving to unzip his trousers.

"Don't do that," Natasha said sharply. His eyes narrowed, and she knew she would have to cover for her mistake somehow. But she wouldn't allow Yelena's rapist to touch her that way if she could help it. "The boy," she said, gesturing behind her. "I could not wash, and you wouldn't want to be tainted with his filth."

Starkovsky narrowed his eyes at her, but on the surface of it, there was nothing untoward about her words. "There are other ways to satisfy the requirement," he said finally.

 _Liar,_ she wanted to shout at him. But she instead pasted a smile on her face and thought of fire, of standing in a pool of his blood.

Natasha moved to straddle Starkovsky, and moved his hands behind her. "A poor substitute, perhaps," she said quietly. "But clean. You should not have something unworthy of you."

Lies, all lies. But he accepted them and ground against her clothed groin, hands roaming all over her prepubescent body. She made sure to keep her expression pleasant, if a little vacant. He finally grabbed her hair and yanked, making her look at him. "Look at me. You _will_ feel something, Cadet."

"But my pleasure isn't important, comrade," she said sweetly despite the pain in her scalp. "Only yours is."

That was apparently the right thing to say. It flattered his ego and apparently showed deference to his status in the program. Honestly, it didn't matter what Natasha thought, only what he did. Regardless of her performance with Alexei, Starkovsky could still say she failed if he was displeased with her.

It didn't matter what happened to her body. She had to survive. She had to keep going. Her body was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. That much had been obvious when she was seven, Makarov in hand. That hadn't been too long ago, either.

Natasha eventually made her way back to the dormitories. She headed straight to the showers, not looking at any of the other girls, not looking for Yelena. Instead, she shed her clothes and scrubbed her skin under scalding hot water. She was bright pink and feeling boiled when Yelena found her. "You survived," she said, relief obvious. "And not a mark on you," she added with a hefty dose of envy.

"Not where you can see," Natasha had replied bitterly.

That had shamed Yelena a little, and she went into the shower with Natasha, holding her. "You're here with me," Yelena had said. "We survived. We lived. And we're the ones with top scores, so you know we're moving up to the Elites. The others have to worry. They only take the best, and you know we're the best."

Over and over, a mantra burned into their brains. The Elites were the goal. They were the best, and every girl wanted to be the best. They didn't want to be one of the failures shoveled into a shallow grave in the courtyard.

"If it's not better," Natasha had whispered, "then we have to get out. Elites or not."

The running water had been louder than her words. And Yelena would never have wanted to leave the Elites anyway. She counted herself as a volunteer, and was in constant competition with the other girls. "I'm the best." Unless she saw Natasha's scores. Then there was a hint of a scowl, and she would push herself even harder. Coming in second wasn't good enough. She couldn't be the Pale Little Spider of the Red Room. She had to be the best and only Black Widow, no matter what the cost.

Even for best friends, the Red Room left its mark.

***

Clint flattened out the map of Austria and its surrounding countries for Loki's benefit. The trickster god had helped create portals in and out of Villach, as well as any other place that Clint had wanted to investigate. This was all without the blessing of any intelligence agency, but he knew how to dodge their agents pretty well by now. He marked off all the leads he had been able to collect, though he X'd them out in black when it turned out to be a dead end. Much of Hydra's top brass had been killed rather messily, though it was difficult for forensic experts to say if it was before or after Ophelia's death in Villach. Clint was willing to bet it was after; Ophelia would never stand by and let her top people be killed off in such a violent manner.

"Those mages," Clint said after a while, looking at the map. "It's been over a week since Tash disappeared. There's no ransom demand, no one claiming responsibility for her disappearance, no body parts, no sightings. So Yelena isn't interested in trying to kill her to prove a point, she's not trying to take out SHIELD. If anything, it looks like she devastated Hydra on her way out of there, which actually does us a huge favor."

Loki stood there, arms crossed and expression pinched in displeasure. "Yes. You have a point."

"We thought the mages were enchanting something, right?"

"They were."

"But you can't find a trace of Yelena anywhere. And I may have broken into Interpol's files, they can't find anything either."

Smirking, Loki shook his head. "Useless—"

"No, you don't understand. Interpol is good. They're a data collection and investigations agency, they collect the best agents they can in every member country." Clint stood, jaw set. "So all their forensic experts crawled over that house in Villach and the one in Vienna. You don't realize the extent of their networks."

"So?"

"So? There is no forensic evidence Yelena ever existed. No hair or fibers, no fingerprints, no skin cells, not even photographs." Clint gave Loki an intense look. "Ophelia was _in love._ She liked Emilia, but she _loved_ Yelena. Hydra and AIM agents remember the fights she had with Ekaterina about bringing Yelena along. She had pictures everywhere. She bought tons of stuff for her – jewelry, clothes, property... I mean, one guy told me how Yelena got to run Hydra's vibranium mine, and that is some serious shit that even top level people didn't always do for Ophelia."

"Your point?" Loki asked, bored.

"So where's her stuff? Where'd she go? How did she disappear like that? There's _no forensic evidence._ It's like she was able to wipe everything away, erase that it ever existed..."

Loki stared at Clint in surprise, lips parting. "What did you say?"

"Erase that it ever existed?" Clint repeated, brows furrowing in query.

Breath hissing in through his teeth, Loki suddenly was angry with himself. "The scribes."

"What?"

"Those blasted scribes and their bastardized script!" Loki snarled, hands clenching into fists. "Where are their texts?"

"Austrian intelligence."

"I must have them."

"Paperwork," Clint reminded him.

Baring his teeth in a grimace of a smile, Loki pointed to the map. "Where is it?"

"Loki..."

 _"Show me!"_ Loki demanded. "I will walk on Yggdrasil and not sully the reputation of your precious SHIELD."

Loki disappeared _between_ as soon as Clint pointed on the map the general location. It was all he needed to start looking for signs of runic magic. His first attempt to get the books brought him to the right place but not the right time. It took several tries to refine the timing, as he had to be sure he caught it just right; if he wasn't paying close attention, he could overshoot his walk by years, if not decades, in either direction, and he didn't want to waste time walking back to the starting position to try again. When he finally did find the books in lockdown, he easily tore through the box to get at them.

The spell he had cast had moved ghostly images of the dead bodies through their final minutes of life. He hadn't thought to actually examine the scribes' books, accepting Clint's assessment of their function because of the placement in the room. _Stupid._ Yelena had been clever, having the mages in different groupings at specific points in the room, doing multiple workings at once. It allowed an incredible amount of power to build up, even if the mages themselves weren't aware of it, and that allowed her scribes to do something that no human mage should have been able to do.

Change the _spá_ to hide Yelena's presence.

Mortals couldn't find traces of her at all, and even for Loki it would be damned difficult. Clever, clever girl. He would admire her ingenuity if he didn't hate her so much.

"The bitch used magic!" Loki raged when he returned to Avengers Tower. He didn't care that he was interrupting a meeting between the Avengers. "No wonder no mortal could find her. They erased parts of her existence!" He paced, ignoring the worried glances that Clint and Steve sent in his direction. "She'll remain hidden until she chooses to be found!"

"Well, then," Clint began calmly. Loki whirled around, but stilled at the confident look on Clint's face. "We'll just have to make sure she wants to be found."

***

"Someone is looking for her," the Winter Soldier announced as he entered the hotel room. He found Yelena soothing the small of Natasha's back as she vomited violently into the toilet. "The injections are making her worse. The formula must be wrong."

"They're not wrong," Yelena insisted.

"It isn't making her stronger. The triggers aren't working."

"No, they are. Her memory is coming back. We're loosening the hold those bastards put on her," Yelena insisted. She leaned against Natasha's back and curled an arm protectively around her middle. "She's ours, we're making her perfect."

"She was impressive before. This," the Winter Soldier replied, gesturing to Natasha with his flesh arm, "is destroying what we need."

"I would rather destroy her than let someone else have her," Yelena hissed.

"Don't I get a say in this?" Natasha asked weakly, still clutching the toilet.

The Winter Soldier looked at her pale face and shaky limbs. His gaze hardened when he looked at Yelena. "You are destroying our tactical advantage. This ends now."

Yelena bristled. "No," she snarled, letting go of Natasha to glare and snarl at the Winter Soldier, hands in fists. "Don't forget, _I_ found _you."_

Faster than Natasha was be able to track in that state, the Winter Soldier removed a knife from his waist sheath, flipped it up and grabbed it. He held the knife not far from Yelena's throat, and there was no change in his expression at all. "The mission, Yelena," he said coldly. "Continue in this manner, and you will fail."

Something shifted in Yelena's gaze; she had always been afraid of failure, of not being as good as Natasha. Was that what this was all about?

"I'm out of vials anyway," Yelena huffed. She stalked out of the bathroom without another word, anger clear on her face. Natasha didn't relax until she heard the outer door slam, indicating she left the hotel room.

The Winter Soldier gently picked her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed. "Thank you," Natasha rasped.

"They might be killing you."

Déjà vu crashed into her. She looked at him with hope in her eyes, too exhausted to try to hide it from him. "Do you remember us, then?"

His flesh and blood fingers trailed down her cheek tenderly. "I never forgot."

Natasha's eyes widened and she grasped his hand to press it against her cheek. "Winter," she said softly. "I _never_ would have left you behind if I knew..."

His gaze shifted; she had no idea what he had been told or what he remembered from the day she had burned down the Red Room. In her timeline, it had been twelve years ago. For all she knew, in his timeline it had been the week before.

"We will not speak of those dark days," he said finally. "They cost us both too much."

"There are no children in the Red Room," Natasha told him softly. "The children are too young, too weak. They die, alone and afraid."

He nodded solemnly. Was he remembering when he had told her that? "Love is for children," he told her, extricating his hand. "What we have are debts. Responsibilities. Ledgers. Balance. Not love or tenderness or compassion. There is no time for emotions. There is only the mission, in completing the part we have to play."

"I know," she said, letting the tension bleed out of her body. She shut her eyes. "It always was something that impressed me."

He chuckled. "Ah, Natashenko. You had always impressed me, too."

His fingers trailed down the hollow between her breasts, then into the curve beneath one. She kept her eyes shut, letting him caress her bare skin wherever he liked. Her breath quickened, and she cracked an eye open to look for Yelena. She was nowhere to be found.

"She was angry and left the room entirely," the Winter Soldier said in dry tones.

As Natasha sat up, she remembered other hotel rooms in various states of disarray. Her lips quirked as she took in her surroundings. The Winter Soldier caught that, of course, and there was a flash of curiosity in his eyes. "Too bad I'm not dressed," Natasha laughed. "The room is entirely too neat."

"We also haven't had sex yet, to be entirely fair."

She caught the laughter in his eyes and couldn't help but lean in and kiss his mouth, one hand coming up to rest on his cheek. "We can fix that problem."

"Yes, we can," he murmured, hands coming to trace her back gently. "It's not the same if we don't trash the room."

"There's still time for that."

Practically tearing off his layers of clothing, they attacked each other as if it hadn't been twelve years since the Red Room fire. Each piece of clothing was tossed aside without care for where it landed or what it knocked into. The Winter Soldier pulled her down onto the bed on top of him, landing heavily and jostling the bedside table. When the lamp tottered and ultimately fell, they both burst out into laughter. "Looks like we can still make a mess," Natasha laughed, leaning down to kiss his smiling mouth. It felt so good to see him smiling at her, to feel his hands on her, to have his eyes light up at the sight of her.

Love is for children, he had taught her. There were no children in the Red Room, and no such thing as normalcy. Still, for a time they could pretend with each other.

Natasha brushed her breasts across his chest as she kissed him. He seized the back of her head when she started to pull back, deepening the kiss. Taking the hint, Natasha reached down to palm his cock rather than take it into her mouth. He smiled against her mouth and let go of her hair to reach between her legs. He stroked her until she came, gasping for breath. She climbed on top of him and mounted him, sighing in pleasure. She slowly rocked above him, his hands resting gently on her hips. Gradually, he urged her to move faster, until she had to reach behind her to grab his thighs for balance. Natasha was still dizzy, but this was worth it. She loved him, she had always loved him. Feeling him inside her again made her doubt where she was, whether it was another dream reliving her past or if she was in the present.

"Natasha," the Winter Soldier growled, pushing up into her. He chanted her name like a prayer, eyes dark with passion as he looked up at her.

She tightened and came, squeezing tight around his cock. He closed his eyes and let go of his control, spilling into her. With a pleased sigh, Natasha slowed and then draped herself over his torso. He was still inside her, right where he belonged.

When she had burned down the Red Room, this was what she had wanted. They were supposed to be together. She was supposed to tease him in between missions or during sparring sessions, smacking his arm or smirking as she called him an idiot. "I wasn't sure what you remembered," she said quietly. "You looked so angry with me in Austria."

"I thought you abandoned us. Me."

Natasha let out a soft sighing breath. "I really thought I killed you. It... between that and Yelena saying she wanted to kill me, I had nothing left. This was all I knew, and it didn't matter who I worked for."

"Those people looking for you," the Winter Soldier began.

"In the past few years," she admitted slowly, "I've collected a family."

"Oh, Natashenko," he said, disappointed. "You know better." 

"Yes. I tried not to at first, but..." She bit her lip uncertainly. "They help me, protect me, work with me. They worry about me."

Cool metal fingers traced her spine gently. She had seen him rip out an enemy combatant's spine before, or puncture a chest cavity to remove a still-beating heart. Yet he was always gentle with her, always careful. It was his way of expressing his love for her.

"Then we must show them there is nothing to worry about. You are safe with us, especially now that I will not allow Yelena to continue the injections. Once they see this, they'll back off." The metal fingers ran the length of her spine again, making Natasha shiver. "Then you will belong only to us, as it should be."

"As it should be," Natasha echoed. There was an ache deep in her gut, and she tried to tell herself it was nothing more than residual weakness and nausea from the injections, even if it felt very similar to regret and anguish.

***

They met in an open area late at night. Natasha was flanked by the Winter Soldier and Yelena Belova. Clint, Steve and Loki were already waiting for them when they walked up. "I'm here," she told them unnecessarily, taking on a wide-legged stance that carried the impression she didn't care about their opinion.

Clint stared intently at her. "Are you all right, Tash?"

"You can see that I am."

"They kidnapped you, Tash. Forgive me if I needed to confirm it," he replied, voice even but with some strain.

"She told you she's fine," the Winter Soldier said, his voice hard and pitiless. Steve started at the sound of it, staring at him intently.

"Bucky?" he asked, taking a half step forward.

The Winter Soldier turned his dead eyes to Steve. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

Before Steve could answer, Yelena stepped forward, an irritated look on her face. "Enough. We've come. You see Natalia is fine. She's home again, and you can leave."

Clint stared at Natasha's impassive expression. "Tash?"

"It's like with Drakov's daughter, Clint. Times change," she said dispassionately. Her head shook imperceptibly at Loki when he started to step forward. "SHIELD will have to do without me."

"And Asgard?" Loki asked, a thread of anger in his voice. "What of your duties there?"

"Those will have to be put on hold for right now," Natasha told Loki. While her expression was still a mask, some true regret came through in her voice. "Other deals will have to be suspended for now, as well."

"Oh? _Suspended,"_ Loki said with a snarl. "For how long? For you did promise to maintain such an association indefinitely, Natasha. Is your word meaningless?"

Now anger flashed in her eyes and her hands were fists at her sides. "The bargain will resume when possible," she snapped in her domme voice. Then she turned to Clint, her expression softening. "Take them home, Clint. You know what needs to be done."

"Are you sure?" he asked, concern evident. "We can help if you need it..."

"We don't need your help," Yelena said in disdain. The tone clearly said he should be thankful that they weren't killing the agents.

Natasha touched Yelena's arm in a comforting gesture, much the way she usually did with Loki. Seeing it made him want to scream and strike Yelena dead where she stood. It was bad enough he didn't feel their connection anymore, as if something was blocking it. Scrying spells hadn't worked, his locator spells hadn't worked. _Nothing,_ and then the message to meet. This wasn't happening. Natasha wasn't willingly leaving them. These were her _friends._ She wouldn't abandon those she cared about.

Though she had also cared for Yelena in the past, and the Winter Soldier had been special to her as well. Who did she care for most?

"It's here if you need it," Clint told Natasha earnestly.

"We'll back you up," Steve said.

The Winter Soldier was watching him carefully, no recognition in his dead eyes. "Was there further business?"

Steve stared at him, jaw clenched. After a moment, he shook his head. "Naw, I guess not."

"I _will_ call on you," Loki said, displeasure evident.

 _"Don't,"_ Natasha intoned. She was warning him away with her voice and expression and stance, and he could tell it was genuine concern for him. Clint grabbed his arm tightly, forcing him to remain where he was.

"Don't follow us," the Winter Soldier told them.

Clint nodded. "We won't." When Loki started to protest, Clint glared at him. _"We won't."_

The trio remained rooted in place until Natasha, Yelena and the Winter Soldier were gone. Loki whirled around glare at Clint. "You _cretin!_ I could have gotten her back!"

"This is _her_ choice, Loki," Clint said, voice hard and angry. "She's protecting us from them, and there's something bigger going on."

"How d'you figure?" Steve asked.

"The reference to Drakov's daughter."

"She killed her," Loki told them, still furious. "That tells us _nothing."_

"Shut the fuck up," Clint snarled, and Loki suspected that he had been waiting to say such a thing for a very long time. "It's _why_ she killed the girl that matters."

"I saw it in your mind," Loki told him, yanking his arm away. "Natasha slit the girl's throat."

"Wait," Steve commanded, then turned to Clint. "You know her best from that period. Why'd she put in the reference?"

"That was the job she took when I brought her in," Clint began in a low tone, nodding toward the way they had come. As they walked, he spoke quietly, and the other two men had to keep up with him in order to hear the story. "She was hired to kidnap Drakov's daughter, torture and kill her, in order to show Drakov he couldn't leave the Vory."

"So? She killed her," Loki said sharply.

"Not then," Clint snapped in reply. "She pretended to be the girl's new tutor to get her, but she changed her mind and protected her. The Vory had to put out word they needed new mercs, that's when I got there. I tracked them, they were tracking her. When I caught up to them, there were six mercs left that were about to brutally kill the both of them. I recognized two or three of them by their rap sheets, and it wasn't going to be clean or easy."

Loki blinked. This part hadn't been seen years ago. "Wait. I don't understand."

"She's the best. So when the Vory didn't hear from her, they sent a dozen men. She was already hurt by the time I got there, six men left. The girl was bloodied, too. And I call her a girl because she was only twelve or thirteen at the time. They talked, I don't know what about because Tash never told me. But that's when she slit the girl's throat. She knew what was happening, Loki. The girl wanted Tash to do it, not those guys." Loki merely stared at him dumbly. "And while the mercs were stunned, Natasha took them out as badly as they would have killed her."

"Christ," Steve murmured, taking in Clint's expression.

"When I got there, Natasha was cradling the dead girl in her lap and sobbing. She _wanted_ me to shoot her, practically begged me to, saying the death would never stop if I didn't kill her. It was all she knew."

"But you didn't," Loki murmured, still confused.

"No, I didn't. She was tired of death, tired of killing. She knew sometimes there had to be a hard sacrifice. So did the girl, even then." Clint gave Loki a hollow-eyed look. "Tash is doing that now. She's sacrificing herself to keep us safe."

Steve looked at Loki's stunned expression. "You didn't know that. You were in his head four years ago, though..."

Loki glared at him and Clint. "You resisted, then."

A smile suddenly broke out on Clint's face. "Huh. I guess I did." He picked up his pace a little more as they approached their car. "C'mon. We need to regroup and plan. Those two are all that's left of the Red Room, and those guys were _nasty."_

"You said we weren't going after her," Loki accused.

"He's not lying if we're going to stop the Red Room from opening shop again," Steve said, catching Clint's meaning.

Loki blinked and regarded Clint critically. "You are perhaps more devious than I ever gave you credit for, Hawk."

Clint nodded and opened the doors. "I'll take that as a compliment. We need to meet Fury again. Odds are, we'll need SHIELD resources to track them down."

"I can't find Natasha the way I used to, but I can find a way to track her down," Loki said sulkily, sliding into the back seat. It wasn't his favorite place to be in, but Clint was the one driving and never wanted him in the front passenger seat.

"But not Yelena and the Winter Soldier," Steve said. "If they separate at all, we won't catch them, and we need to."

"We need Natasha," Loki said, managing to avoid sounding as desperate as he felt.

"No arguments there," Steve said firmly. "We need to do this the smart way."

Swallowing down his resentment, Loki acquiesced and followed their lead.

***

Back in the hole in the wall motel room they had spent the day in, the Winter Soldier rounded on Natasha. "What message did you give them?"

"That this is my choice," Natasha told him evenly, not flinching at his gaze. "It was my choice to join SHIELD eight years ago, it's my choice to leave now."

Winter stared at her, but her gaze didn't waver. He nodded sharply. "Fine. Why did that one call me Bucky? What is the import of that?"

"You look like someone he knows," Natasha replied. She knew who it was, ever since she had looked into Steve's file, but Bucky Barnes was likely gone. She had never seen the Winter Soldier act in a way that was similar to Steve Rogers or his descriptions of Bucky over the years she had known him. Being a tool of the Red Room, Bucky Barnes had likely been scoured clean and emptied of Steve's friend. She had thought it a kindness never to talk about the Winter Soldier with him before.

Yelena was pacing back and forth, agitated. "They won't take you away. I'll kill them all first."

Natasha yanked on her arm, halting her progress. "You promised me, Yelena. They kept me safe until now, and they _do_ care for me. They'll help us if we need it."

She yanked her arm away from Natasha. "We don't need them," Yelena hissed.

"The Red Room burned to the ground ten years ago," Natasha hissed. "We're talking about rebuilding its reputation from scratch, and there are organizations out there that will stop us."

"I disabled Hydra," Yelena sniffed.

"There's still AIM, Project Centipede, Black Spectre, the Hand, the Ten Rings, any solo acts wanting to make a name for themselves... We can't afford to throw away potential allies."

"She's right," the Winter Soldier intoned, cutting off any protest Yelena wanted to make. "Her friend thinks of me kindly, and they are concerned for her wellbeing. They won't stop us."

Yelena scowled, but deferred to the Winter Soldier's opinion. She had always been subservient to him on missions they ran together, and had only been in competition with Natasha. As much as she loved Natasha fiercely, she constantly felt the need to prove herself a proper Black Widow. Natasha thought it likely had to do with the last bout of conditioning she had been subjected to before the Red Room was destroyed. SHIELD therapists and agents had eliminated all of the triggers that had been in her head, but there was no such help forthcoming for Yelena or the Winter Soldier. Plus, whatever experimentation she had done with Hydra might have destabilized her further. Natasha knew she had to tread carefully around her.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" he asked her. "He called me Bucky. Why would he do that?"

"His best friend in the war was James Buchanan Barnes," she told him honestly. "He was called Bucky, and you look just like him." Natasha paused. "He fell in the Alps in '44, but there had been some experimentation done before that..."

"So you think I'm him."

"It's a possibility."

The Winter Soldier stared at her impassively. "You think I'm him."

"You could be. I don't know." She held his gaze; there was no point in lying when he could always tell if she was. "Do you feel like a Bucky?"

"No."

"Or James?" she prodded.

The Winter Soldier opened his mouth to reply, but paused. "I'm not sure. Winter doesn't fit."

"You never let me name you," Natasha murmured. She looked at him closely, ignoring Yelena snarling in the background how none of this mattered, that Steve would die if he tried to separate them all. "James," she said, voice soft and intimate, the way she used to say _Winter_ to him. It felt like the name could curl around him, like it fit the jagged pieces of what Department X had allowed him to be.

"I can be James," he said after a moment, and she could almost see the warmth in his eyes.

"You will _not_ go to those creatures," Yelena hissed, jerkily pacing the length of the room behind Natasha. "You belong with us, Natalia."

Natasha didn't turn, and kept eye contact with the Winter Soldier. _James._ "I remember what we used to be," she said softly, pitched more for him than for Yelena. "I remember what never could have been, but what we wished for. I remember lives I never lived, lives I never saved, everything that was twisted and polluted and destroyed."

Yelena stopped her pacing, at least. But it was the Winter Soldier that Natasha wanted to reach, and he touched her chin with his metal hand. "How do you remember? They would have unmade you. They would have scrubbed you clean."

"They did. Often." She tilted her head, until her cheek was in the palm of his metal hand. "But it filtered through in dreams. The longer I was away from them, the more fragments I could remember. And the injections now... It's clearer in many places."

There was a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, as if he couldn't tell where she was going with the admission. He got up abruptly and went to the bathroom. Yelena sat down in his place, a slick smile stretching her lips, her eyes glittering with madness. "You remember, then. The Red Room. Us. All of it."

"I remember many things," she said slowly, treading carefully around Yelena's agitation. "I don't know what you remember."

"Then I'll show you," Yelena purred, leaning in to kiss her. Natasha sighed and let her; it was simply easier that way.

For a brief moment, Natasha allowed herself to entertain the fantasy of running away. She could slip away in the middle of the night. But then what? Go to a hospital or domestic violence shelter and pretend to be an ordinary girl abused by her lover? Yelena would find her, would show up with automatic weapons and threats to shoot innocents in order to get her back. Natasha wouldn't be able to escape, not that way.

She sacrificed herself for so many reasons, what was one more? She had offered herself willingly to Loki to assuage his ego and save Earth from his chaotic wrath, and that was when she had nothing but anger and loathing for him. Why not do the same for someone she had genuinely cared for when she was younger? Natasha and Yelena had been friends in the Red Room, lovers when possible. Cold comfort in a chilling place, but for Yelena it had been true love. Natasha's love had centered around Winter, and she knew he felt it in return.

It was just as well the Red Room's program was called Black Widow. It was an intricate web that tied them all together.

Yelena was a snarling mess, James would follow where they wanted him to go. He needed a mission, he didn't know how to be whole. There were too many holes in his mind, too many blank patches in his personality. Yelena was far too volatile to be left alone.

They needed her, these beautiful, fragile, dangerous people. They needed her and loved her and would fall apart without her. Allowing them to fall apart would be cruel. She could be, if she needed to be, but this was not one of those times.

"I have the perfect first target to get us back on the map," Yelena chirped when their kiss broke, beaming at Natasha widely. "Ekaterina Sarkissian won't be a problem without her mages. I very helpfully got rid of them when I left Ophelia. I think you should have the honors."

Ekaterina had been very careful to avoid getting caught in legal traps. SHIELD couldn't touch her, even though she had been on their radar for years. Natasha had almost been killed on her whim, and her survival would have been much more iffy without Loki's help. Ekaterina was too dangerous to live, and there was no legal way to take her down. This was the best and only way to eliminate that threat, destabilizing AIM and their hidden terrorist agenda.

Natasha allowed herself a small, sinister smile. "Yes. That's perfect, Yelena." She leaned forward, eyes glinting dangerously. "And I know just how to do it."

The End


End file.
